Thursday, March 17, 2011

Obama Administration: New Orleans PD not shooting enough whites

From WWLTV:
The [Department of Justice Civil Rights Division's] report found from 2009 to 2010 all 27 incidents of NOPD deadly force were against African Americans, and in 2009  the department arrested 500 black and 8 white males under age of 17, which diverges "severely" from national data.

Disparate impact, I tell you!

In 2000 (the most recent data I can find), the NOPD was 51% black. I can't find anything in the Obama Administration's report on the racial identity of these NOPD police officers they are criticizing. That seems like a bit of an omission for a Civil Rights Division report, no? How often does that division forget to mention the racial makeup of an organization they are criticizing?

What former Mayor Ray Nagin called "Chocolate City" had its first African American mayor in 1978 and its first black police chief about a quarter of a century ago. A residency requirement for cops worked to discourage working class whites from joining the NOPD.The NOPD, which had always been shady, became notoriously gangsta in the late 20th Century.

This part of the Civil Rights Divisions' report on the New Orleans' Police Department report makes interesting reading in light of the Civil Right Division's requirement that the Dayton Police Department hire more marginal applicants(see below):
NOPD hired hundreds of officers during a relatively short time period; one estimate is that 400 officers were hired during the three year period following Katrina. In its press to hire these officers, NOPD reportedly lowered its recruiting standards, essentially removing the physical agility requirement and asking the Civil Service Commission to score the written portion of the application less vigorously.

... At the time of our review, the attrition rate for the latest recruit class was nearly sixty percent. Of the sixty-six recruits that successfully completed the recruitment and background investigation, thirty-nine were eliminated from the training class. NOPD expended thousands of dollars to test, train, and conduct background checks on what were clearly marginal applicants, a waste of funds that NOPD could have better used in a more targeted recruiting process. Nonetheless, NOPD’s decision to eject unqualified candidates before they became officers was the appropriate one. In interviews with NOPD officers at all ranks, we heard the consistent complaint that the Training Academy routinely graduated police recruits who were sub-par and not fit for duty.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is working to New Orleansize the Dayton Police Department.

Prediction: Nobody in the Obama DOJ will ever notice the contradiction between their complaints about New Orleans police applicants being scored less vigorously on the written test and their simultaneous demands that Dayton police applicants be scored less vigorously.

That would be HateLogic!

Let me add that the politics of this appear a little byzantine. Federal intervention in the police force was demanded by the new mayor, the first white mayor in 32 years, who was elected after lots of poor black voters were flooded out of the Lower 9th Ward. My guess is that the white mayor's intention is to bring the feds in to stage a quiet coup against a black-dominated institution, but to do it in the name of Civil Rights.

Very clever ... but can this kind of double bankshot maneuver be executed adroitly when nobody is allowed to mention in public what the problem is and only vaguely hint at what the solution is? After all, the Civil Rights Division doesn't have much practice at requiring organizations to grade hiring tests more vigorously. Are Obama's DOJ minions  going to be able to remember that the point of this exercise is to hire smarter, less criminal cops -- i.e., whiter cops? That's not exactly what Civil Rights Division lawyers are trained to do, as Dayton shows. From the report, it looks like the best they'll be able to do is force the NOPD to hire lots of Hispanic and Vietnamese cops. As I said, a double bankshot.

We shall see.

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