“Washinton” State cops want to recruit New York’s Finest — but maybe they should look for a spell checker instead.
The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office is aiming to poach members of the NYPD with a $15,000 signing bonus as a carrot, but the flashy Times Square billboards trumpeting the recruitment ploy misspelled the name of the Evergreen State.
“Spokane County Sheriff, Washinton State $15K Hiring Bonus,” touted one bad ad.
The sheriff’s office forked over a cool $12,000 for the bumbling billboards.
Can you spell embarrassed?
No way, tweeted the Spokane Sheriff’s office Wednesday after getting trolled by the social media police, who noted the spelling error in the office’s original Twitter and Facebook posts.
“The ad company, even after regular hours, is working to fix the typo, We appreciate their quick response. Mistakes happen every day. We are human. Thank you to the so-called ‘elites’ that only take the time to revel in a typo. Oh, and we’re still hiring!” the sheriff tweeted in response.
Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said he purchased billboards in cities where pols have dissed their police.
“New York was one of the heaviest areas where their local leaders really came out and did not support their law enforcement, actually disrespected them,” he told The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington.
The sheriff’s campaign has also targeted cops in Portland, Seattle, Denver and Austin, according to the report.
Knezovich, who is looking for 40 new recruits to make the 2,600-mile trek from NYC to Spokane, felt emboldened to make the offer in the aftermath of the protests, anti-cop sentiment and vaccine mandate-induced turmoil in the Big Apple.
Knezovich, who has a $140,000 annual recruiting budget, felt he got a good bang for his buck out of the ad, which drew priceless media attention.
“Let’s compare doing nothing and running continually short [on officers],” he said, according to the report. “How much overtime is that costing the community? More importantly, how much lack of public safety do we cause by being short-staffed?”
Knezovich said the faux pas was a mistake by the ad agency, adding he’s “disgusted” media outlets would focus on spelling rather than the sales pitch.
“I’ve seen juvenile before; this is just about as juvenile as it comes,” he said. “Some kid made a mistake and that was the headline.”
Last month, Fla. Gov. Ron De Santis offered NYPD officers $5,000 to come to the Sunshine State.