Ah, this video brings back memories of my time in DC in 1990, where I lived just blocks from the Capitol Building, working as an intern for the Cato Institute, working with and becoming friendly with current Case Western law professor and blogging superstar, Jonathan Adler, who writes for The Volokh Conspiracy and National Review. (His mother's penthouse suite in Centre City, Philadelphia, where I stayed July 4 weekend, was the scene over chicken and spinach salad of a liberal parent engaged in strenuous debate with her conservative son that made the TV show starring Michael J. Fox, Family Ties, seem tame by comparison.)
The result of the video will probably be disciplinary actions for the hot-headed plainclothes detective. What the h-ll was he thinking? If I were to do that, I'd be arrested pronto for criminal threatening, no questions asked. As I should be. Are cops above the law?
It calls into question whether the man was merely having a bad day or is temperamentally unsuited to such a position of authority. With power comes responsibility, which the detective apparently lacks.
The police in DC were way below what I was used to in Michigan and esp. in New Hampshire. First, was the lack of professionalism in their bearing and speech, sometimes peppered with the vilest profanity I'd ever heard. Not all, of course, but an alarming minority nonetheless. Some of the cops seemed to be thuggish, like former criminals. Turns out there were more such people than some wanted to admit.
The rule that required or favored DC residents in the hiring process--a backdoor way to minimize whites from the 'burbs dominating the police force--and the foolhardy stance of hiring people regardless of a, shall we delicately say, tainted past, including even felonies, made the department extremely ineffective. Its ability to solve murders was and is legendarily bad.
I thought of this recently when news broke that one in three of Atlanta's police academy graduates has a criminal record, which also practices the invidious discrimination of giving preferential treatment to applicants from the city (again, to keep the whites away, who tend to live outside the city limits proper). This made for scandalous headlines but no changes that I can ascertain.
The result of the video will probably be disciplinary actions for the hot-headed plainclothes detective. What the h-ll was he thinking? If I were to do that, I'd be arrested pronto for criminal threatening, no questions asked. As I should be. Are cops above the law?
It calls into question whether the man was merely having a bad day or is temperamentally unsuited to such a position of authority. With power comes responsibility, which the detective apparently lacks.
The police in DC were way below what I was used to in Michigan and esp. in New Hampshire. First, was the lack of professionalism in their bearing and speech, sometimes peppered with the vilest profanity I'd ever heard. Not all, of course, but an alarming minority nonetheless. Some of the cops seemed to be thuggish, like former criminals. Turns out there were more such people than some wanted to admit.
The rule that required or favored DC residents in the hiring process--a backdoor way to minimize whites from the 'burbs dominating the police force--and the foolhardy stance of hiring people regardless of a, shall we delicately say, tainted past, including even felonies, made the department extremely ineffective. Its ability to solve murders was and is legendarily bad.
I thought of this recently when news broke that one in three of Atlanta's police academy graduates has a criminal record, which also practices the invidious discrimination of giving preferential treatment to applicants from the city (again, to keep the whites away, who tend to live outside the city limits proper). This made for scandalous headlines but no changes that I can ascertain.
More than one-third of recent Atlanta Police Academy graduates have been arrested or cited for a crime, according to a review of their job applications. The arrests ranged from minor offenses such as shoplifting to violent charges including assault. More than one-third of the officers had been rejected by other law enforcement agencies, and more than half of the recruits admitted using marijuana."On its face, it's troubling and disturbing," said Vincent Fort, a state senator from Atlanta. "It would be very troubling that people might be hitting the streets to serve and protect and they have histories that have made them unqualified to serve on other departments."
A rigorous written exam and physical test should be by far the most
important determinates, too. Giving one that doesn't even show a
proficiency in mathematics--a dumbing down of the test--encourages
incompetency. Here's the Washington Post's account (linked above):
But I would argue that with liberalism the dominant mode of thinking and its central doctrine of not discriminating against blacks and homosexuals and the like, the situation can be turned on its head. So Mr. Briscoe, who likely scored a 59 on the blind-graded written exam, did very well indeed on the interview with a 92 percent, one of the highest scores. That's a huge discrepancy. These are the obvious numbers of the raw data that one doesn't normally see because of privacy concerns. The lack of transparency in the hiring process of public sector positions I find to be a scandal, whether it be hiring a second- or even third-rate female at the University of New Hampshire's history department, as I'm sure has been done, or hiring someone in order for a public relations coup. I think the raw data should be publicly available, otherwise people can hide behind the veil of secrecy to promote their own agenda.
Has this been done in the past? Yep.
But then again we don't even know the President's grades or how he was able to get into Columbia when he spent two years in a miasma of marijuana smoke and some cocaine usage by his own account at Occidental in Calif.
I would dearly like to see the data with the recent hiring of the two Gilford police officers, for instance, including a twenty-one-year man who hadn't done anything of note, at least according to a local newspaper article. Though here I should tread lightly, having been taken to task for my tone by the blog's proprietor, although I take nothing back that I wrote. For thinking it probable that preferential treatment could have been involved? No. But the Gilford police chief (the photo certainly doesn't inspire confidence) assures us that the young man shined, absolutely was stellar, according to Chan's discussion with him, in the oral interview. Whatever.
As something of a con artist who got his teaching position at an impressive boarding school in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire without a college diploma when most of my colleagues possessed masters' degrees, I can personally attest to the fact that some of us can turn on the charm and bling our way into positions we really want.
Ted Bundy, the serial murderer of dozens of women, was infamously reported to be a charmer who immediately disarmed people.
Subjectivity, thy name is the oral interview.
On the other hand, my extremely talented & capable wife, the brains of our particular operation, does poorly when interviewed. Extreme nervousness causes her to tense up and be ineffective. And please no one tell her I wrote this.
N.B. Since then, however, I have finally earned that piece of paper. I was a superannuated college student, anyway, and very likely earned the equivalent of two of 'em. Many of these people graduating from college who haven't studied the hard sciences have wasted their time learning what they should have learned in high school. Too many--way too many--go to college in the first place, but that's another story.
And the oral interview is rife with subjectivity and should not be as important as the other two indices. Otherwise, a scenario could unfold where a guy receives simply outstanding score on the oral interview but does an abysmal job on the written exam, as there is now a federal case wending its way, steming from Michael Briscoe's failure to earn a lieutenancy position with the New Haven, Conn., fire department. But there the unions had required that the oral interview would count for less than the written, for fear that the inherent subjectivity of the oral exam would favor the "old boy network" of whites, leaving a black man like Mr. Briscoe in a disadvantaged position.A D.C. law gave preferential treatment to city residents.
The entrance exam, in use since 1981, had 100 questions concerning the duties of police officers. The exam didn't include questions related to tasks for which arithmetic might be used, such as reconstructing an accident scene or totaling the value of property stolen in a burglary. The test also didn't require applicants to demonstrate skills in writing or grammar.
Compromised Standards
Since the early 1980s, anyone who got at least half right on the test was placed on a register to be hired.
But I would argue that with liberalism the dominant mode of thinking and its central doctrine of not discriminating against blacks and homosexuals and the like, the situation can be turned on its head. So Mr. Briscoe, who likely scored a 59 on the blind-graded written exam, did very well indeed on the interview with a 92 percent, one of the highest scores. That's a huge discrepancy. These are the obvious numbers of the raw data that one doesn't normally see because of privacy concerns. The lack of transparency in the hiring process of public sector positions I find to be a scandal, whether it be hiring a second- or even third-rate female at the University of New Hampshire's history department, as I'm sure has been done, or hiring someone in order for a public relations coup. I think the raw data should be publicly available, otherwise people can hide behind the veil of secrecy to promote their own agenda.
Has this been done in the past? Yep.
But then again we don't even know the President's grades or how he was able to get into Columbia when he spent two years in a miasma of marijuana smoke and some cocaine usage by his own account at Occidental in Calif.
I would dearly like to see the data with the recent hiring of the two Gilford police officers, for instance, including a twenty-one-year man who hadn't done anything of note, at least according to a local newspaper article. Though here I should tread lightly, having been taken to task for my tone by the blog's proprietor, although I take nothing back that I wrote. For thinking it probable that preferential treatment could have been involved? No. But the Gilford police chief (the photo certainly doesn't inspire confidence) assures us that the young man shined, absolutely was stellar, according to Chan's discussion with him, in the oral interview. Whatever.
As something of a con artist who got his teaching position at an impressive boarding school in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire without a college diploma when most of my colleagues possessed masters' degrees, I can personally attest to the fact that some of us can turn on the charm and bling our way into positions we really want.
Ted Bundy, the serial murderer of dozens of women, was infamously reported to be a charmer who immediately disarmed people.
Subjectivity, thy name is the oral interview.
On the other hand, my extremely talented & capable wife, the brains of our particular operation, does poorly when interviewed. Extreme nervousness causes her to tense up and be ineffective. And please no one tell her I wrote this.
N.B. Since then, however, I have finally earned that piece of paper. I was a superannuated college student, anyway, and very likely earned the equivalent of two of 'em. Many of these people graduating from college who haven't studied the hard sciences have wasted their time learning what they should have learned in high school. Too many--way too many--go to college in the first place, but that's another story.
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