MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) \u2014 Beyond the beating, kicking, cursing and pepper spraying, the video of Tyre Nichols\u2019 deadly arrest at the hands of young Memphis police officers is just as notable for what\u2019s missing \u2014 any experienced supervisors showing up to stop them.
\nThat points to a dangerous confluence of trends that Memphis\u2019 police chief acknowledged have dogged the department as the city became one of the nation\u2019s murder hotspots: a chronic shortage of officers, especially supervisors, increasing numbers of police quitting and a struggle to bring in qualified recruits.
\nFormer Memphis police recruiters told The Associated Press of a growing desperation to fill hundreds of slots in recent years that drove the department to increase incentives and lower its standards.
\n\u201cThey would allow just pretty much anybody to be a police officer because they just want these numbers,\u201d said Alvin Davis, a former lieutenant in charge of recruiting before he retired last year out of frustration. \u201cThey\u2019re not ready for it.\u201d
\nThe department offered new recruits $15,000 signing bonuses and $10,000 relocation allowances while phasing out requirements to have either college credits, military service or previous police work. All that\u2019s now required is two years\u2019 work experience \u2014 any work experience. The department also sought state waivers to hire applicants with criminal records. And the police academy even dropped timing requirements on physical fitness drills and removed running entirely because too many people were failing.
\n\u201cI asked them what made you want to be the police and they\u2019ll be honest \u2014 they\u2019ll tell you it\u2019s strictly about the money,\u201d Davis said, adding that many recruits would ask the minimum time they would actually have to serve to keep the bonus money. \u201cIt\u2019s not a career for them like it was to us. It\u2019s just a job.\u201d
\nAnother former patrol officer-turned-recruiter who recently left the department told the AP that in addition to drawing from other law enforcement agencies and college campuses, recruits were increasingly coming from jobs at the McDonald\u2019s and Dunkin\u2019 drive-thrus.
\nIn one case, a stripper with an arrest record submitted an application. And even though she didn\u2019t get hired, it reinforced the message that \u201canyone can get this job. You could have any type of experience and be the police.\u201d
\n\u201cThere were red flags,\u201d said the former recruiter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel and hiring. \u201cBut we\u2019re so far down the pyramid nobody really hears the little person.\u201d
\nMany young officers, before ever walking a beat with more experienced colleagues, found themselves thrust into specialized units like the now-disbanded SCORPION high-crime strike force involved in Nichols\u2019 arrest. Their lack of experience was shocking to veterans, who said some young officers who transfer back to patrol don\u2019t even know how to write a traffic ticket or respond to a domestic call.
\n\u201cThey don\u2019t know a felony from a misdemeanor,\u201d Davis said. \u201cThey don\u2019t even know right from wrong yet.\u201d
\nMemphis police did not respond to requests for comment about their hiring standards. But police Director Cerelyn Davis, who took over in June 2021, has said supervision of less experienced officers is an urgent need, noting her department is investigating why a supervisor failed to respond to Nichols\u2019 arrest despite a policy that requires a ranking officer to go to the scene when pepper spray or a stun gun is used.
\n\u201cIf that had happened, somebody could have been there to intercept what happened,\u201d Davis told the AP in an interview last month.
\n\u201cCulture eats policy for lunch in police departments,\u201d she added. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have the checks and balances you will have problems.\u201d
\nDavis told city council members Tuesday that she intends to bring in an outside vendor to help fill 125 new supervisor slots, which would improve the ratio of supervisors to officers from the current 1-to-10 to about 1-to-8, closer to what is considered the ideal ratio of at least 1-to-7.
\n\u201cWhile those 125 don\u2019t satisfy the ratio, this is a start,\u201d Davis said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the officer that has to be held accountable. It\u2019s everybody in the chain up to the chief of police.\u201d
\nOf the five SCORPION team officers now charged with second-degree murder in Nichols\u2019 Jan. 7 beating, two had only a couple of years on the force and none had more than six years\u2019 experience.
\nOne of the officers, Emmitt Martin III, 30, a former tight end on the Bethel University football team, appeared to have had at least one arrest, according to files from the Peace Officers Standards and Training Commission, a state oversight agency. But the date and details of the case were blacked out.
\nThe section for arrests in the agency\u2019s file for another officer, Demetrius Haley, 30, who worked at a Shelby County Corrections facility before joining the force, was also redacted from the state records. Haley was sued for allegedly beating an inmate there, which he denied, and the case was dismissed because papers had not been properly served.
\n\u201cIf you lower standards, you can predict that you\u2019re going to have problems because we\u2019re recruiting from the human race,\u201d said Ronal Serpas, the former head of the police in Nashville and New Orleans and the Washington State Patrol. \u201cThere\u2019s such a small number of people who want to do this and an infinitesimally smaller number of people we actually want doing this.\u201d
\nMemphis, in many ways, stands as a microcosm of the myriad crises facing American policing. Departments from Seattle to New Orleans are struggling to fill their ranks with qualified officers amid a national movement of mounting scrutiny and calls for reform in the wake of the 2020 killing of George Floyd.
\nDavis\u2019 aim after taking office was to increase staff from 2,100 to 2,500, close to the size of the force a decade ago. Instead, the police ranks have dropped to 1,939 officers \u2014 like the city, majority Black \u2014 even as the population has increased and the number of homicides topped 300 in each of the past two years.
\nA big part of the reason for the dwindling ranks is that more than 1,350 officers either resigned or retired over the past decade \u2014 more than 300 in the last two years alone.
\nMichael Williams, former head of the Memphis Police Association, the officers\u2019 union, said strict supervision is essential, especially for the specialized teams like SCORPION.
\n\u201cWhy would you have an elite task force that you know is designed for aggressive policing and you don\u2019t cover your bases? They may have to shoot someone. They may have to kick someone\u2019s door down. They may have to physically restrain someone,\u201d Williams said. \u201cYou should have experienced people around to restrain them and keep them from going down a dark path.\u201d
\nLongtime observers of the Memphis police say this is not the first moment of reckoning for a department with a history of civil rights abuses.
\nAfter the 2015 death of Darrius Stewart, a 19-year-old Black man fatally shot by a white police officer, activists and U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat, called on the U.S. Justice Department to conduct a \u201cpattern or practice\u201d investigation of civil rights violations in the department. Such inquiries often result in sweeping reforms, including staffing and training overhauls.
\nCarlos Moore, an attorney for Stewart\u2019s family, warned the Justice Department at the time of a deadly trend that preceded Stewart\u2019s death. \u201cThere have been over 24 suspicious killings of civilians by officers of the Memphis Police Department since 2009,\u201d he wrote in a 2015 letter obtained by AP, \u201cand not one officer has been indicted for killing unarmed, largely Black young men.\u201d
\nThe Justice Department decided not to open such an inquiry for reasons it didn\u2019t explain at the time, and it declined to comment this week.
\n\u201cThe Department of Justice missed a golden opportunity to properly investigate the Memphis Police Department,\u201d Moore said in an interview. \u201cIt was just as corrupt then as it is now.\u201d
\nThaddeus Johnson, a former Memphis police officer who is now a criminal justice professor at Georgia State University, said the missed chance for federal intervention allowed the problems of the department \u2014 soaring crime, community distrust and chronic understaffing \u2014 to fester until they exploded.
\n\u201cA deadly brew came together,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that same mixture is in many other places, too, where the bubble just hasn\u2019t burst yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Apnews<\/p>\n
Tags\uff1aPolice Recruitment Criteria<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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