Rhymes With Right

January 27, 2008

When Race Counts More Than Character Or Qualifications

You get situations like this one in San Antonio.

A former San Antonio police officer set to be sentenced this week for allowing his live-in girlfriend to deal methamphetamine was hired by the department in 1994 despite being rejected two years earlier for reasons including a drunken driving conviction, a newspaper reports.
Background investigators also concluded that Joseph Anthony Evans tried to hide a criminal trespass arrest, a hit-and-run conviction and an internal investigation of sexual misconduct at a corrections officer job. He'd also been rejected by Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth, the San Antonio Express-News reports.
San Antonio police had also originally denied Evans a badge because polygraphs showed deceptive or inconclusive answers to questions ranging from illegal drug use to stealing from employers.
"Joseph Evans is not San Antonio Police Department officer material," investigator Ignacio Cantu wrote in a 1992 memo recommending rejection.

Good grief! Upon what basis would any police department ever hire this guy?

Oh -- maybe this one.

Two officials involved in the hiring of Evans, who is black, say other applicants recommended for rejection during the administration of Chief William O. Gibson also were let onto the police force when the department was under pressure to meet affirmative action goals.
Sandoval, who retired in 1997, said he overrode other rejections from applicant screeners amid political pressure from City Hall to hire more black and female officers.

* * *
[Former police academy commander Larry] Birney said he remembers none of the episode. But he did recall that Evans wasn't the only rejected minority applicant whom Sandoval hired over his objections.
"I wouldn't say it was common but it wasn't uncommon, either. I can tell you horror stories," said Birney, who declined to talk further on the record.

See what happens when one puts the color of someone's skin over the content of their character. You loose the latter to get the former -- and in the process do harm to the very institution you were trying to improve.

Posted by: Greg at 11:39 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 345 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Here in Houston, back in the early 70's we had Carroll Lynn (sp?) in charge of hiring for the police academy. At the same time Lynn had a private security business which he kept populated with new employees by stealing them from the city employment line. I am aware of at least two officers who finally did make it to HPD, after having been told they were not qualified only to be hired into the security company by Lynn. These were top quality officers who stuck it out until Lynn was out of the loop. Lynn eventually became police chief and then was convicted of a hand full of felony charges and wound up in prison. I guess the sword cuts both ways.

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