Port Authority Shakes Up Police Force Over Exam-Breach Inaction Responding to its police department's failure to investigate a high-ranking officer for misconduct, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey stripped the department of control over its internal affairs division, officials said Wednesday. The move is one of the first steps the Port Authority has taken after learning its police agency allowed claims of possible cheating on a promotional exam to go unreported and uninvestigated for nearly a year. In recent days, executives at the Port Authority decided to place the Internal Affairs Division under the office of the Port Authority's inspector general, officials said. "Internal Affairs was at the heart of the scandal, and it doesn't leave you with a lot of confidence," said a Port Authority official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters. The move coincided with a related personnel move: three high-ranking officers from the Port Authority Police Department filed for retirement, the officials said. Two of them, Deputy Chief Keith Walcott and Inspector Brian Sullivan, learned last June that a police captain had taken unauthorized photographs of questions on an upcoming sergeant's exam, according to the Port Authority official. The Port Authority's inspector general is currently investigating whether Inspector Sullivan's actions, and those of others - including the 1,700-member Police Department's superintendent, Michael A. Fedorko - were insufficient. The connection to the investigation, if any, of the third retiring officer, Inspector Nicholas Tagarelli, was unclear. The captain who took the photographs, John Ferrigno, was on a panel of officers who were administering part of the exam, and he has since told other Port Authority officials that he took the photographs to help himself prepare, several people familiar with the inspector general investigation have said. Several colleagues were in the same room at Port Authority Police Headquarters with him when he took the photos, including his supervisor, Inspector Sullivan. A second colleague present, Inspector Richard Brazicki, saw Captain Ferrigno taking the pictures and reported the breach in the test's security to Inspector Sullivan and others, expecting prompt disciplinary action, the officials said. Eventually word of the breach reached Superintendent Fedorko, officials said. Inspector Sullivan eventually instructed the captain to delete the photos from his phone while he watched, according to the same official. But it was not until last month - some 10 months after the test was given - that the Port Authority inspector general's office learned of the breach and any formal inquiry was opened into what had occurred, the official said. In recent weeks, the Port Authority moved to fire Captain Ferrigno, a high-ranking officer in Internal Affairs. The inspector general's investigation into Captain Ferrigno's actions has not turned up evidence that he shared the test questions with any police officers sitting for the sergeant's exam, two officials familiar with the inspector general's report have said. "Today's personnel changes, and transferring control of Internal Affairs are signs of our firm commitment to reforming the P.A.P.D.," the Port Authority's executive director, Patrick J. Foye, said in a statement.