Police Officer

Description:

This position will serve as a Senior Police Officer at the Atlanta VA Medical Center in Georgia. The Police Officer will perform a full range of police duties by following and executing rules, regulations, or procedures covering law and rules enforcement, physical and personal security operations, patrol duties, control desk duty, coordination with local courts, and/or crime prevention activities for the local jurisdiction.

Requirements:

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement.

Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-07 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-06. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade.

Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment.

You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: Specialized Experience: You must have one year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade GS 6 in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Examples of specialized experience would typically include but are not limited to: Experience that provided knowledge of a body of basic laws and regulations, law enforcement operations, practices, and techniques and involved responsibility for maintaining order and protecting life and property. Creditable specialized experience may have been gained in work on a police force; through service as a military police officer; in work providing visitor protection and law enforcement in parks, forests, or other natural resource or recreational environments; in performing criminal investigative duties; or in other work that provided the required knowledge and skills. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment.

Physical Requirements:
The work requires regular and recurring physical exertion, long hours of standing, walking, driving and similar activities. The incumbent must respond to alarms, pursue suspects, participate in training activities, climb stairs and walk during assigned foot patrols in and around large building, campus, and other physical settings. Agility, dexterity and strength are needed to pursue, apprehend and detain uncooperative suspects. Incumbents must be physically able to lift or carry injured or hurt persons, evacuate persons to safety during storms, disasters, fires or other emergencies. The incumbent is expected to maintain a high standard of physical fitness and hand and eye coordination to maintain his or her semi-annual qualification with his/her assigned firearm and annual qualification with his/her assigned departmental issued intermediate weapons.

Work Environment:
The work environment regularly involves high risks with exposure to potentially dangerous situations or unusual environmental stress which require a range of safety and other precautions (e.g., subject to possible physical attack or crowd conditions or similar situations where conditions cannot be controlled.)The work is performed in settings in which there is regular and recurring exposure to moderate discomforts and unpleasantness, such as high levels of noise in industrial settings, high temperatures in confined spaces, or severe weather conditions during extended periods of traffic and patrol duties. The employee may be required to use protective clothing or gear such as masks, gowns, coats, boots, goggles, bullet resistant vests or shields. The work involves moderate to high risk requiring exercise of safety precautions when working around hazardous materials such as toxic gases, explosives, infectious biological materials, and others that pose a moderate risk of exposure.

Investigation of Fitness:
A character investigation may be conducted on applicants selected for employment. The purpose of such an investigation is to secure evidence of the candidate's honesty, integrity, general character, and loyalty to the U.S. Government. Such investigations will be conducted under the security requirements of the hiring agency.

Medical Requirements
The duties of these positions require moderate to arduous physical exertion and/or duties of a hazardous nature. The following medical requirements apply to all applicants: good near and distant vision, ability to distinguish basic colors, and ability to hear the conversational voice. Agencies may establish additional, job related physical or medical requirements provided that the specific position(s) involves the arduous or hazardous duties to which the physical requirements relate.

Applicants and employees must have the capacity to perform the essential functions of the position without risk to themselves or others. Applicants and employees must possess emotional and mental stability. In most instances, a specific medical condition or impairment will not automatically disqualify an applicant or employee. A medical condition or impairment is disqualifying only if the condition, for good medical reason, precludes assignment to or warrants restriction from the duties of the specific position. For some positions, the loss or impairment of a specific function may be compensated for by the satisfactory use of a prosthesis or mechanical aid. Reasonable accommodation shall also be considered in determining an applicant's ability to perform the duties of a position. Reasonable accommodation may include, but is not limited to the use of assistive devices, job modification or restructuring, provision of readers and interpreters, or adjusted work schedules.

All positions involving Federal motor vehicle operation carry the additional medical requirements specified in 5 CFR 930 and the "General Policies and Instructions" section of this Manual.

For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

Designated Drug-Testing Position: Applicants tentatively selected for VA employment in a testing designated position are subject to urinalysis to screen for illegal drug use prior to appointment. Applicants who refuse to be tested will be denied employment with VA. Applicants will not be appointed to the position if a verified positive drug test result is received.