Salary: $71,750.
Closing Date: 9/30/2026
Position Summary:
The Gaithersburg Police Department provides law enforcement-related services to more than 71,000 residents. City officers respond to calls for service as necessary and utilize a data driven approach to solve problems and to deal with issues affecting the safety and quality of life in all City neighborhoods.
Essential Functions:
Police Officer Candidate:
- Attend and successfully complete a Maryland certified law enforcement training academy designed to provide training in police methods and procedures including but not limited to patrol functions, crime prevention, law enforcement, investigation, and identification techniques, equipment, legal obligations, police records and reports, first aid, weapons, effective and professional communication, emergency vehicle operation, and physical fitness.
- Receive instruction in the City of Gaithersburg Police Department’s organization, chain of command, and rules, regulations, and procedures.
- May provide administrative or other clerical tasks in support of department functions and services when not attending academy training.
- Participate in in-service and special training programs as assigned.
Police Officer I:
- Operate a patrol vehicle while responding to calls for service, address community complaints while riding a police bicycle, respond to incidents on foot, and/or conduct proactive foot patrol.
- Investigate and enforce violations of traffic laws, suspicious activities and/or persons, and disturbances of law and order.
- Respond to radio dispatches and answer calls and complaints; investigate crimes, traffic accidents, and domestic disputes.
- Issue traffic citations; serve warrants and summonses; make arrests and testify in court.
- Direct traffic, provide police escorts, perform residential and commercial checks.
- Fill out arrest records, prepare reports and records, transport prisoners.
- Participate in in-service and special training programs as assigned.
Requirements:
- Must be 21 years old at time of appointment to Police Officer I to be Certified by the Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commissions.
- Be a United States citizen or a permanent legal resident of the United States and an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces (provided that U.S. citizenship has been applied for and the application is still pending at the time of appointment as a Police Officer).
- Possess a valid driver’s license and have a good overall driving record.
- Be in excellent physical and mental condition as determined by comprehensive examinations.
- Be able to meet the established vision standards required to successfully perform police officer tasks including passing tests for color vision (including a 14-panel Ishihara Vision Test for color blindness), acuity, binocularity, stereopsis (depth perception), and other vision skills.
- Have graduated from an accredited high school, or possess a high school diploma recognized by the Maryland Department of Education or a General Equivalency Diploma (GED).
- Be of good moral character, with no felony convictions or misdemeanor convictions for which a sentence of imprisonment for one year or more could have been imposed.
- Not be a current user of illegal drugs.
