His boss, Thomas Press, says Thomas is a fine officer whom he'd recommend without hesitation. "If we had any doubt about Greg's character or his integrity, he couldn't be carrying a gun, serving warrants for me."
The Philadelphia Police Department didn't question Press about the 27-year-old investigator. Thomas didn't get any farther than his polygraph test.
In the spring he passed the physical and the criminal-records check, and scored in the top 5 percent on the written police test. But he bombed two of four polygraph questions the Police Department has asked of its applicants.
Fail that many, and you're done.
"I'm just really annoyed," Thomas said the other day. The examiner at the Academy for Scientific Investigative Training in Center City told him he gave unbelievable denials to inquiries about whether he'd used, sold, or handled illegal drugs within the last five years and whether he'd committed a serious crime, caught or not.
As an investigator for the warrant unit, Thomas handles drugs but is subjected to random tests to make sure he doesn't use them. He had to pass a background check before working in his job, and his supervisor said the office is notified if an employee is charged with a crime.
Furthermore, Thomas said he passed a polygraph when he applied with the Pennsylvania State Police, and was offered a job in 2009 on the condition that he have surgery to correct his 20/70 vision, which he didn't want to do.
Did a bad day of testing weed out a good man?
Patricia Giorgio-Fox, deputy police commissioner for organizational accountability, isn't so sure. "The polygraphers are very comfortable with the results of this particular candidate," she said.
