Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 4020 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: JANUARY 2017 cops with higher levels of education and clean records in terms of drug and other offenses, but it is what it is. “We have a national cri- sis,” said Eugene O’Donnell, a former New York City police officer and now a lecturer at John Jay Col- lege of Criminal Justice in New York. “For the first time in my life, I would say I could never recommend the job. Who’s going to put on a camera, go into urban America where people are going to critique every move you make? You’re going to be demon- ized,” O’Donnell told the Associated Press. Standards for hir- ing officers are up to the states. There is no national stan- dard. And because it’s so difficult to hire women and minorities, many lawmak- ers are doing away with the standards of old in order to increase diversity. One of the reasons for the change is the fact that people from minority communities are more likely to be dis- qualified by criminal back- ground and credit checks. “Hiring is particularly problematic in this environ- ment we live in,” Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Re- search Forum, told report- ers. “I’ve been in a room with a large group of police. I’ve asked how many of you would like your son or daughter to be a police of- ficer and no one raises their hand.” Many law enforcement officials seem to think that the current standards for hir- ing officers are too high and that just because someone got locked up or used drugs doesn’t mean they can’t be effective police officers. “I don’t want to hire altar boys to be police officers, necessarily,” Baltimore Po- lice Commissioner Kevin Davis told The Baltimore Sun. “I want people of good character, of good moral character, but I want people who have lived a life just like everybody else — a life not unlike the lives of the people they are going to be interact- ing with every day.” In Wichita, Kansas, Po- lice Chief Gordon Ramsay is working to relax hiring standards. “People who have strug- gled in life can relate better to the people we deal with,” Ramsay said. “My experi- ence is they display more empathy.” But there’s no question you get more bodies with lower standards. Education requirements for potential hires were changed in Louisville, Ken- tucky recently. They used to require 60 college credit hours. But that seemed to put a lot of applicants off. In just the first month after dropping the minimal education require- ment, applications went through the roof. The agency re- ceived so many applications, 667 to be exact, that it had to stop accept- ing them to ensure they had time to properly review them. Some critics are saying that opening the doors to any- one and everyone might be slightly shortsighted. “Lowering your standards is an absolute mistake. It’s an absolute connection to misconduct, corruption and a degrading of the agency,” said Jeff Hynes, a former Phoenix officer who is chair- man for public safety scienc- es at Glendale Community College. “It is just a recipe for disaster.” Continued from page one Well I gotta tell ya, Mrs. Williams – these felony weapons and drug charges might have been the kind of stuff that would have kept you from becoming a certified police officer way back when. But between budget cuts and the war on cops we’re pretty much looking for English- speaking people that can stay awake for more than six hours. Basically we need warm bodies Unless you get pretty creative, it’s actually pretty difficult to arrest someone for being a jerk and getting whatever the charge is to stick. But sometimes being a jerk does indeed cross the line into criminality. If it were up to many of us, probably a vast major- ity, whistling or singing Semisonic’s ’90s rock ballad, “Closing Time” would be a felony. And according to a story in Time magazine, a man wouldn’t stop “obnoxiously” whistling the catchy hipster love ballad near a woman’s house in Oregon. The woman told the guy to shut up. He refused and they got into it. Then she wisely called the police, who showed up promptly. Captain Mike Herb of the Forest Grove Police Depart- ment writes the department’s widely shared and very funny weekly police log. “It’s not clear if the caller would have been more or less upset if it was a differ- ent genre or whether it was just the talent lacking in the whistling,” Herb wrote for the blog. When officers arrived, the guy had moved on. But he was still whistling that awful song which made him easy to find and question. Officers spoke to the man who said he was upset that he had been told to shut up. The creep whistler You don’t have You don’t have to go home to go home but you can’t but you can’t stay here! stay here! Cut out the whistling or I’m calling the cops! “Lowering your standards is an absolute mistake. It’s an absolute connection to misconduct, corruption and a degrading of the agency.” • Removes weight of duty belt off hips and lower back • Enables you to perform at maximum standards • Helps keep shirt tucked in during physical activity • No need to adjust duty belt when exiting vehicle • No need to hold duty belt when engaging in foot pursuits No more back pain The Back Defender is the only concealed belt suspension system approved for police duty WWW"ACK$EFENSE3YSTEMSCOM   (or)