Police Dept. Drops Swim Test to Recruit Minorities

[kbr80]

Police Dept. Drops Swim Test to Recruit Minorities

Thursday, May 06, 2004

NORTH MIAMI — In an attempt to recruit minority officers, the police department in North Miami, Fla., has dropped swimming as a required skill because it says not enough potential black applicants know how to swim well enough to pass the test.

The city's population is 60 percent Haitian and city officials say removing the swimming requirement wasn't done to be politically correct, but to fill 14 vacant slots.

"The bottom line is I need police officers," said North Miami Police Chief Gwendolyn Boyd-Savage (search). "When I look at the qualifications to become a good police officer ... a person's ability to swim or not to swim does not make them a good police officer or a bad police officer."

But Miami Dade County (search), which includes North Miami, has hundreds of miles of canals, lakes and beaches. In nearby Broward County (search), the top cop said deputy candidates are required to swim, regardless of the color of their skin.

Broward County Sheriff Ken Jenne (search) said if his deputies weren't prepared to swim he wouldn't "send them in harm's way and endanger their lives."

For 25 years Lee Pitts has trained police and military officers how to swim and he doesn't think race has any relation to swim.

"The basic instructions to learn to swim are patience and desire, whether you're Haitian, Asian or African-American," Pitts said.

Click here to watch a report by Fox News' Orlando Salinas.

 

[Treylis]

Good heavens, how hard can it be to learn how to swim? I can't imagine that the swim test was some incredibly grueling endurance match that nobody could pass without months of swim training.

 

[TCD]

lol
I was going to make a joke but I'll be nice

(it was about an other group of minorities which I am myself )


edit:
on topic, I do see why if they need to have the slots filled, sometimes the only thing you can do is lower the bar, but then *you* are lowering the bar which IMO should only be raised. So now, if somedude is drowning, the cop can't do a dang thing other then radio for help.


Even though I hate water, I still know how to swim

 

[Balog]

If this is true, and I see no reason to doubt it, then this is one of the most horrible derelictions of duty by a senior cop I've ever seen. What a moron

Anyone have a link to this?

 

[firearms_instructor]

What a moron, exactly

What an incredibly foolhardy policy. If there was ever a place where the cops needed to know how to swim, this is it. Folks, this is the world's biggest swamp! We have almost as many canals, lakes, and ponds as streets here in south Florida. I'd have to imagine it's hard enough to swim with all the stuff cops normally wear IF you know how to swim. With no swimming skills, it's gonna be a fast trip to the bottom, accelerated by body armor, handcuffs, radio, sidearm, spare ammo, flashlight, etc...

My lovely wife pointed out that, now that this is public knowledge, a fleeing felon could escape one of these uniphibious cops just by swimming across a canal. Too easy.

And forget about one of these guys being able to rescue someone whose car went into the canal. They'd be useless.

"And when you lose control, you'll reap the harvest you have sown
And as the fear grows, the bad blood slows and turns to stone
And it's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around
So have a good drown as you go down all alone, dragged down by the stone" - Pink Floyd, Dogs, from the Animals album

 

[carpettbaggerr]

Must...resist...typing...bad...stereotypical...joke............

 

[0007]

What he meant to say we have these 14 positions that I have to fill to meet my AA quota regardless of the lack of qualifications of the applicants... :banghead: Welcome to the Animal Farm.

 

[Baba Louie]

I like swimming, I just don't think I'd like to swim in water which has alligators and other sharp toothed denizens contained therein. Had a run in with a snapping turtle once when I was skinny dippin in a Missouri pond as a yout. I shudder to think about such things nowadays. (Still got the scar on the bottom of my right big toe... too close fer comfort boys)

Maybe they can issue dept. water wings for them what needs them.

 

[Leatherneck]

I was only half paying attention when this ran, but I think I heard the female chief say that recruits would be trained to swim as part of their early training. If so, I don't have any problem with eliminating the swim capability as part of initial quals. Anybody else catch that?

TC
TFL Survivor

 

[Obiwan]

So...we have Paul Hornung saying minorties are not smart enough to attend Notre Dame.....

And now Miami tells us they can't swim.....

Where O Where is the outrage????

Seriously......if Rush Limbaugh had said this he would be lynched!

 

[sturmruger]

May the Force be with you Obiwan. (sorry I couldn't resist)


I agree with you Jedi Master, but this isn't the first time they lowered the bar for minorities. Seems like allot of Fire Companies lowered the bar so more women could make it in. Oh well such is life.

I guess I am a racist or bigot becuase I think that if you really want something you should work harder for it until you succeed. Not have the bar lowered so you can slip in.

 

[Mikul]

What the heck...

Maybe they should hire more Cubans. We know they can swim.


I love how establishments like this are constantly lowering standards for blacks. Wouldn't this tick you off if you were black? Because it says to me, "You people aren't [strong|skilled|smart] enough to actually make it, so we'll let you in by pity." I'd love to see the NAACP lay into groups like this. Sheesh. Have some pride, will ya?! I think the same thing when I see colleges have black standards and everybody-else standards.

Hey, ya know, those Brain Surgeon degrees are pretty hard to get with all of the chemisty, biology and whatnot, whadda ya say we drop those requirements so there will be more black brain surgeons? And pilots, we can get rid of all of that aeronautamical stuff to get more black pilots. Of course, I won't be getting any brain surgury from these clowns and I certainly won't be flying anywhere, but at least we're doing something.

Now, if I were a smart criminal, I'd commit crimes in areas known to be patrolled by black officers and jump in the bay when I see them coming. Nyah! Nyah!

 

[Ezekiel]

You're kidding, right? "Thought not".

Save for Leatherneck, most replies strike me as knee-jerk reactions written by a bunch of polarizers. (I could be wrong.) In this case, swimming is a gatekeeper for every applicant if you cannot swim. It's farcical that folks would be concerned about its eradication as a diatribe seeing that, by account, teaching officers how to swim is now part of their training.

Here's how I see it referencing thier previous policy: I am a Spanish-speaking American Indian with a BA in CMJS and an MPA that could not be hired here because I cannot swim. That's bogus. I presume anyone else -- regardless of "status" -- would feel the same.

This can be made racially motivated but, in reality, it's just poor policy that excludes everyone. The problem is that there are less qualified minority applicants in the first place. Unfortunately, it's always going to be that way. (That's why we're called minorities...)

Zeke

 

[Tropical Z]

Why is it that so many blacks never learn how to swim???
Growing up,i knew several black kids and none could swim.I never could figure out why they refused to learn.By the way,Denver lowered its standards a few years back in order to "qualify" more hispanics for the force.All this does is destroy society in the long run.Liberals will NEVER learn!:banghead:
Minority groups should be outraged that this lowering of standards to accomadate them is occuring at all.

 

[Shalako]

You know, instead of dropping the requirement to swim for the qualification, why don't they just penalize the one's who can swim?? Because its just not fair that some people can swim and others can't. It's just not fair.




[/sarcasm]

 

[erikm]

Well, I agree that police officers need to be able to swim for any number of reasons. I can also see the recruiters' problem with not being able to recruit enough officers.

But instead of dropping the swimming requirement entirely, why not make it a graduation requirement? Allow every recruit to take a basic swimming test. Anyone who passes is marked as passing the basic swimming requirement. Everyone else gets sent to a swimming course.

Cheers,
ErikM

 

[mercedesrules]

(carpettbaggerr) Must...resist...typing...bad...stereotypical...joke............

Haha!

"...not enough potential black applicants know how to swim well enough to pass the test."
"The city's population is 60 percent Haitian"

*reads carpettbaggerr's mind*

How the heck did they get here, then???

 

[Viking6]

as long as all applicants pass a swimming requirement before they graduate from their respective academies or hit the street, i see no problem. For whatever reason some folks in some neighborhoods don't swim as much as other folks. If a person is dedicated enough to overcome that short-coming, then give them a shot. The only reason my kids are good swimmers is because my wife and I (and some formal swim lessons) taught them as babies. That's something my parents didn't do for my brothers, sisters and me.

 

[CannibalCrowley]

This is yet another case of lowering the bar in search of "diversity." Anyone can learn to swim if he wants to. We had a handful of blacks in bootcamp and one failed the swimming portion because he refused to learn. His stance was that, "I'm black, I can't learn how to swim." Their irrational fear of the water was self induced.

If a person really wanted to join the department, he'd learn how to swim. If he's too lazy or fearful to do so, then he can go somwhere else. My old Platoon Commander was black and a better swimmer than most of the platoon (CWSQ or CWSS I can't remember which).

Since the department is stating that the stereotype of swimming is true, does that mean that they believe the other stereotypes to be true also?

 

[BigG]

Affirmative Action - it's a beautiful thing.

 

[kbr80]

I wonder if they also lower standards for firearm qualification, or other requirements.

 

[MeekandMild]

Why is it that so many blacks never learn how to swim???

Years ago my SCUBA instructor explained some of the problem. When he had been in the Navy his diving buddy was Black. The buddy could not perform a dead-man float even in salt water. The explanation was that Blacks often have heavier and denser bones than many Whites and have relatively less fat, so can't float. His buddy could do everything else that divers were expected to do.

 

[Chipperman]

I have never been able to float well, but I can swim very well. If I stop moving, I'll sink to the bottom. Guess I must be part shark.

This is a cultural issue and has nothing to do with race.

 

[0007]

Wrong Eze -
As long as they don't hire ANYBODY of any "ethinic/racecial" origin who can't swim you don't have a fin to complain about. Or, in other words, if you can't swim and want to be considered for a position, go down to your local "Y" and take lessons...

 

[greyhound]

The city's population is 60 percent Haitian and city officials say removing the swimming requirement wasn't done to be politically correct, but to fill 14 vacant slots.

In my opinion, anytime someone says something wasn't done for PC reasons, its a good bet that it was.

Its like liberals insisting they aren't liberals; though most feel they must BE politically correct, there's still a slightly negative connotation to it, so everyone denies it.