Dumb and Dumber

 

Dumb is lowering the standards for police recruits. Dumber are the mayors and city councils that want to lower the standards to staff their police departments. Police departments that they have destroyed through defunding and defaming their officers.

From a Fox News story:

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called to remove “obstacles” for new police recruits and pledged to root out officers with ties to “right-wing domestic extremist organizations.”

Bass is looking to remove “obstacles” for police recruits who fail to initially qualify for training as a means of further diversifying the LAPD, according to a summary of her public safety goals obtained by Fox News Digital – but police union leaders are questioning the move.

Bass’ summary of goals for police reform includes a list of provisions as well as dates by which the department must report back regarding progress. One provision says a deputy mayor will work in conjunction with a “third party” to “evaluate the personnel process and identify obstacles to entry for recruits who fail to qualify for training.”

If you are going to send someone out into the community with a badge and a gun sending out the lowest common denominators in a room is a recipe for disaster, regardless of the color of their skin. Policing is like any other profession. There are those that test well but some will fail when they have to perform in the real world.

The difference in policing is that you want to start with candidates that are articulate, something the academic world does not necessarily provide. They should have at least two years of college credits. A good work history or at least two years of military service with an honorable discharge. A decent credit report and an extensive background investigation. Lowering these basic standards are not going to improve your police department, nor make the community safer when these officers interact with the citizens in your city.

There is some pushback from the LAPD:

“We think that particular provision or that goal or that idea is dangerous,” Tom Saggau, Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) spokesperson, told Fox News Digital.

“If you have police officers that can’t make minimum qualifications or attained minimum standards, for instance, there are recruits that have been in the academy that just can’t score the minimum requirements for a physical fitness test,” he added. “One hundred is the maximum score, 50 is acceptable. There are folks that are scoring under 10. That’s just dangerous.”

The provision states that recommendations to remove any obstacles will be taken into consideration, especially with those in relation to “ethnic groups disproportionately left out of new officer training.”

Saggau said the provision calls for the lowering of standards within the police department as new hires who did not initially qualify during training are shown not to “possess the mental fitness or the physical fitness ability to be a police officer.”

“That’s just a recipe for disaster,” Saggau said. “So, we think lowering standards is a dangerous precedent.”

Your elected officials may be superstars in the ideocracy, but you do not want that that distinction in a police department.

Published in Policing
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There are 15 comments.

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  1. Tex929rr Coolidge
    Tex929rr
    @Tex929rr

    This was always where it was going.  Progressives don’t want public safety; they want leftie goon squads.  Democratic run cities are headed on the path to becoming 1920’s Berlin. 

    • #1
  2. Vance Richards Member
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    Doug Watt: If you have police officers that can’t make minimum qualifications or attained minimum standards, for instance, there are recruits that have been in the academy that just can’t score the minimum requirements for a physical fitness test,” he added. “One hundred is the maximum score, 50 is acceptable. There are folks that are scoring under 10. That’s just dangerous.

    10 out of 100? So we are not talking about small tweaks. And if they are considering that with physical standards, what about the psychological tests?

    Doug Watt: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called to remove “obstacles” for new police recruits and pledged to root out officers with ties to “right-wing domestic extremist organizations.”

    Do they define what that means? Guts who attended a mass in Latin?

    • #2
  3. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Everyone on the Left seems to think that the definition of a right wing domestic extremist organization is obvious. What about the Boy Scouts? What if someone is a member of the NRA?  Who decides?

    • #3
  4. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Doug Watt:

    Dumb is lowering the standards for police recruits. Dumber are the mayors and city councils that want to lower the standards to staff their police departments. Police departments that they have destroyed through defunding and defaming their officers.

     

    It’s only fair. We’ve already lowered the standards we used to have for mayors and city councils.

    • #4
  5. Doug Watt Moderator
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    Vance Richards (View Comment):

    Doug Watt: If you have police officers that can’t make minimum qualifications or attained minimum standards, for instance, there are recruits that have been in the academy that just can’t score the minimum requirements for a physical fitness test,” he added. “One hundred is the maximum score, 50 is acceptable. There are folks that are scoring under 10. That’s just dangerous.

    10 out of 100? So we are not talking about small tweaks. And if they are considering that with physical standards, what about the psychological tests?

    Doug Watt: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called to remove “obstacles” for new police recruits and pledged to root out officers with ties to “right-wing domestic extremist organizations.”

    Do they define what that means? Guys who attended a mass in Latin?

    It’s always been my opinion that there are two ways to destroy a country. One is election fraud, the other is politicizing law enforcement.

    You need officers that have critical thinking skills and when out on the street they have the training and temperament to take control of a situation without being micromanaged.

    When I look back at January 6 there was a failure to act on information that there was going to be a problem. Add to that a top-down micromanaged police department that didn’t have anyone that was willing to make decisions on the front line.

    Compare that to Portland that had over 100 nights of rioting. Portland police officers, Multnomah County deputies, Oregon State troopers, and Federal Marshals prevented rioters’ entry into the besieged Federal Courthouse for over 100 days.

    • #5
  6. dajoho Member
    dajoho
    @dajoho

    “evaluate the personnel process and identify obstacles to entry for recruits who fail to qualify for training”

    Otherwise known as “standards” that were established and put there for a reason.  Obstacles my… !  This is to be filed under the “you want it bad, you get it bad” heading.  And it’s going to be bad and I wonder what catastrophic incidents will have to happen for folks to wake up.  

    • #6
  7. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    I wonder how this will keep working in the over filmed world?

    I expect more and more people beaten for filming the police as they catch poorly trained thugs on camera. Meanwhile, the good cops will get less and less. 

    • #7
  8. Doug Watt Moderator
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    I wonder how this will keep working in the over filmed world?

    I expect more and more people beaten for filming the police as they catch poorly trained thugs on camera. Meanwhile, the good cops will get less and less.

    Memphis comes to mind as well as the shooting of the yoga instructor in Minneapolis. Not only those departments need to reevaluate their hiring and training model. Every police department should learn from those epic fails.

    Regular in-service training is a must, and in my opinion quarterly firearms qualification should be required.

    • #8
  9. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Percival (View Comment):

    Doug Watt:

    Dumb is lowering the standards for police recruits. Dumber are the mayors and city councils that want to lower the standards to staff their police departments. Police departments that they have destroyed through defunding and defaming their officers.

     

    It’s only fair. We’ve already lowered the standards we used to have for mayors and city councils.

    And that’s one of the more normal-looking photos of her.

    • #9
  10. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    dajoho (View Comment):

    “evaluate the personnel process and identify obstacles to entry for recruits who fail to qualify for training”

    Otherwise known as “standards” that were established and put there for a reason. Obstacles my… ! This is to be filed under the “you want it bad, you get it bad” heading. And it’s going to be bad and I wonder what catastrophic incidents will have to happen for folks to wake up.

    And, of course, even if they do wake up, it will take a lot longer to fix than it took to ruin.

    • #10
  11. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    I too immediately thought of Memphis. Has Mayor Bass not heard of what happened there after the department removed “obstacles” like having been convicted of a felony or of having a history of drug abuse and other details?

    • #11
  12. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Everyone on the Left seems to think that the definition of a right wing domestic extremist organization is obvious. What about the Boy Scouts? What if someone is a member of the NRA? Who decides?

    The Boy Scouts are a Left-wing Wokeist organization.  They are pro-homosexuality and pro-trans these days.

    I’m a former Scout myself.  I think that this is tragic, but the organization is worse than dead.  It’s like a zombie fighting for Sauron.

    • #12
  13. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    Doug Watt:

    Dumb is lowering the standards for police recruits. Dumber are the mayors and city councils that want to lower the standards to staff their police departments. Police departments that they have destroyed through defunding and defaming their officers.

     

    It’s only fair. We’ve already lowered the standards we used to have for mayors and city councils.

    And that’s one of the more normal-looking photos of her.

    With that pointed finger, she looks even more like a demented ET.

    • #13
  14. Quietpi Member
    Quietpi
    @Quietpi

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    I too immediately thought of Memphis. Has Mayor Bass not heard of what happened there after the department removed “obstacles” like having been convicted of a felony or of having a history of drug abuse and other details?

    It gave her ideas.

    • #14
  15. cdor Member
    cdor
    @cdor

    Memphis. That’s all one has to say in response to this Mayor, wherever she works. That is the example of a police force whose standards have been lowered…and the results of those lowered standards:

    • #15
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