Former basketball player becomes America’s tallest police officer

Jordan Wilmore has been sworn in as a police officer with the Kemah Police Department in Kemah, Texas, after a path that kept pulling him toward basketball but never away from public service. At 7-foot-3 and 24 years old, the former college and professional player is believed to be America’s tallest active police officer and the tallest officer in Kemah department history.

For years, Wilmore was steered toward hoops because of his size, but basketball was never the career he wanted to build. He focused on the sport because of his towering frame, yet his real goal was to wear a badge and serve a community, not chase a longer run in the NBA or other pro ranks.

That choice became more visible after he completed police academy training earlier in 2025 and then missed the Texas state licensing exam by one point. The setback could have ended the move into law enforcement, but it instead drew widespread attention and support, including from NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, who offered to help cover Wilmore’s expenses so he could retake the test.

Wilmore’s hiring gives Kemah police a recruit whose biography cuts against the usual script. He is not a typical rookie officer, and he did not follow a typical route into the job. He came through a professional basketball background, used his height as a starting point rather than an identity, and kept pushing toward a public-facing career that placed service above celebrity and higher pay.

The swearing-in also adds another layer to a story that has spread well beyond southeast Texas: a 7-foot-3 former player choosing neighborhood policing over the predictable pull of sports fame. In Wilmore’s case, the number that mattered most was not his height but the one-point gap on a state exam, a margin narrow enough to test his resolve and public enough to bring in help from one of basketball’s most recognizable names.

Now, as a Kemah police officer, Wilmore has reached the goal he said he wanted all along. The unusual path that brought him there has turned him into a symbol of persistence for a department that now counts him as both its tallest officer and one of its most distinctive new faces.