Police say Fort Dix suspect eyed a job as Philly cop

Hundreds of wide-eyed folks filed into Police Headquarters on April 10 for an open job fair, dreaming of a life on the force.

And residency and citizenship requirements be damned, Serdar Tatar was right there in the middle of the whole crowded scene - although it seems unlikely that he was fantasizing about locking up bad guys or riding around in a squad car.

Tatar, 23, a native of Turkey, was arrested earlier this month as a key member of the infamous "Fort Dix Six" - the alleged terrorists who planned to attack the New Jersey Army base.

Though it's a somewhat moot point now, Tatar would never have been accepted into the Police Academy because he isn't a U.S. citizen and had lived in Philadelphia for only eight months. The city Home Rule Charter requires applicants to live here for a year before they can join the force.

"The fact that he wasn't a U.S. citizen would have blown him out the water right there," said Sgt. D.F. Pace, a Police Department spokesman. "Who knows what our own background investigation would have uncovered?"

Police had learned in just the past few days that an accused terrorist had tried to join their ranks.

"We had no idea," Pace said. "We learned after the fact that the feds tried to piece together the last period of his [Tatar's] life and had identified that he was in here that day, putting in a job application."

Tatar, who had most recently worked as a clerk at a Philadelphia 7-Eleven, had apparently also sent in a job application to the police department in Oakland, Calif., and also tried to join the U.S. military, Pace said.

Tatar allegedly learned the ins and outs of Fort Dix by delivering pizzas for his father, who owns a shop close to the base.

He was arrested by investigators on May 7 in his apartment on Tremont Street near Roosevelt Boulevard in Bustleton. He is being held without bail facing a possible life sentence. *