Los Angeles’ Democrat mayor pushes to lower bar for new recruits in attempt to diversify LAPD
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Los Angeles’ new Democrat mayor pushes to lower bar for new recruits in attempt to diversify LAPD as she vows to boot officers with ties to ‘right-wing domestic extremist organizations’
- Mayor Karen Bass plans to reform the defunded LAPD by making it easier to join
- Bass seeks to lower the qualifications for recruits to diversify the department
- She also vowed to remove ‘right-wing’ officers from their positions
Los Angeles’ new mayor is seeking to lower the bar for new police department recruits and has pledged to oust officers with ‘ring-wing’ ties.
Democrat Karen Bass is moving quickly to recruit officers to the defunded Los Angeles Police Department by hiring a third party to study why some recruits fail in hopes of eliminating some qualifications, according to Fox News.
The mayor’s goal to diversify the police department and lower the qualifications has been deemed ‘dangerous’ among LAPD union leaders as some aspiring officers are extremely unfit for the job.
‘That’s just a recipe for disaster,’ Tom Saggau, spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Protective League, told the news outlet. ‘We think lowering standards is a dangerous precedent.’
Other goals Bass plans to focus on include reducing the number of police-involved shootings and eliminating ‘officers associated with right-wing domestic extremist organizations.’
Democrat Karen Bass is moving quickly to recruit officers to the defunded Los Angeles Police Department by hiring a third party to study why some recruits fail in hopes of eliminating some qualifications
The mayor’s goal to diversify the police department and lower the qualifications has been deemed ‘dangerous’ among LAPD union leaders as some aspiring officers are extremely unfit for the job
Saggu told the news outlet those who fail to qualify as a new hire don’t ‘possess the mental fitness or the physical fitness ability to be a police officer.’
‘If you have police officers that can’t make minimum qualifications or attained minimum standards, for instance, there are recruits that have been in the academy that just can’t score the minimum requirements for a physical fitness test,’ Saggau told the news outlet.
‘One hundred is the maximum score, 50 is acceptable. There are folks that are scoring under 10. That’s just dangerous.’
If Bass proceeds to move forward with lowering qualifications, obstacles, including ‘ethnic groups disproportionately left out of new officer training’ will be removed.
Aside from lowering the guidelines to become an officer, Bass is also seeking to ‘identify, discipline, and/or terminate officers associated with right-wing domestic extremist organizations,’ according to the news outlet.
The Democrat mayor also plans to hire more homicide detectives amid staffing shortages and consider other policing options, including ‘alternative response and community policing,’ Bass told The Los Angeles Times.
‘Mayor Bass sees the dire need for more officer,’ Saggau said. ‘The question is, how do you get there? And we are totally committed and completely supportive of civilianizing positions where police officers should be doing police work and civilians should be doing civilian work.’
The moves by Bass come nearly three years after the Los Angeles City Council voted to cut the Los Angeles Police Department’s budget by $150million in 2020
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (pictured) previously vowed to keep officer levels at the LAPD high, but appeared to waver as calls to defund the budget mounted
Other goals Bass plans to focus on include reducing the number of police-involved shootings and eliminating ‘officers associated with right-wing domestic extremist organizations’
The moves by Bass come nearly three years after the Los Angeles City Council voted to cut the Los Angeles Police Department’s budget by $150million in 2020 amid the George Floyd riots and protests.
The entirety of the 2020-2021 Los Angeles city budget is around 10.5billion, according to KCAL 9. The $150million slashed represents eight per cent of the almost $1.8billion LAPD budget geared exclusively towards policing.
At the time, Los Angeles Times reported that the LAPD’s hiring took the hit, plummeting the number of officers to just 9,757 by next summer. It is the lowest level of staffing at the LAPD since 2008.
The 12 to 2 vote affected overtime pay and reduced the number of employees to the lowest level in 12 years.
Maintaining a 10,000-officer staff had been a goal of Los Angeles officials after the department reached that number for the first time in 2013.
Former Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was in office at the time, previously vowed to keep staffing levels high.
It’s unclear if Bass will seek to increase police funding as she lowers the qualification requirements for recruits.