Scores of young men came out ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing to fill ap­pli­ca­tions to of­fi­cers in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

Many said they sac­ri­ficed their night’s sleep on Thurs­day just so that they could ar­rive ear­ly to line up out­side of the Po­lice Acad­e­my in St James.

Among the many hope­fuls was a young man who said he want­ed to help re­build the im­age of the po­lice ser­vice.

Not wish­ing to re­veal his name, the 25-year-old man from Diego Mar­tin said he ar­rived at the acad­e­my around 4 am.

“When I got here I was sur­prised to see a lot of peo­ple out­side here. I heard one say he reached close to mid­night. It’s crazy but I hope we get the chance to be ac­cept­ed,” he said.

An­oth­er young man, 22, said he was fed-up with search­ing for jobs and end­ing up dis­ap­point­ed. He said he want­ed some sta­bil­i­ty.

“I can­not get a job out there. Things hard. The for­eign­ers are be­ing hired and not lo­cals and when lo­cals do get hired, we’re get­ting fired not too long af­ter be­cause of many rea­sons.

“I am look­ing for some­thing more sta­ble, per­ma­nent and with ben­e­fits,” he added.

Asked about the present state of the po­lice ser­vice and the con­duct of of­fi­cers, which has been in the news re­cent­ly, the ap­pli­cant said he re­al­ly want­ed to be se­lect­ed so he could play his part in the way of­fi­cers are per­ceived by the pub­lic.

“Well, I want to be that dif­fer­ence and hope all of us here can help re­build the face of the po­lice ser­vice. We are open to the train­ing and would wel­come it,” he said.

The ap­pli­cants are sched­uled to sit an en­trance ex­am at a date yet to be an­nounced.