I questioned if one of the reasons the whole Justine Damond shooting was a cluster-fuck, that has already taken out the Chief of Police and might cost the mayor her reelection, was that Noor was an affirmative action hire rushed out to mollify a favored Liberal demographic.
The answer is yes.
Noor was put through an accelerated course for recruits that already have a college degree. That alone is disconcerting, but Noor was rushed through even faster than normal in only seven months. Sure, Noor has a college degree, but it was in business management and he ran a hotel before becoming a cop.
I could see this being useful for someone with a background in criminology, law, or some related field. Business management hardly seems like a useful prerequisite for a patrol officer.
The program is not without its critics.
James Densley, a university professor in criminal justice, told the Star Tribune he believes the training scheme is satisfactory but flawed.
‘The cadet program is rigorous, no doubt, but it is also an immersive paramilitary experience, taught by practitioner faculty without advanced degrees, and I suspect it leaves students with a limited view of the profession,’ Mr Densley said.
So Minneapolis police took a hotel manager, gave him a crash course in paramilitary training, and sent him out armed into the city where he screws up and kills a woman.
Good job Libs, your tolerance for low standards and expectations has cost a woman her life.
It’s a Union thing. I forget the numbers, but a huge percentage of large-city cops have Masters degrees, because union rules say that deserves more money.
Some of them have masters in art history, it doesn’t matter.
Not just cops, my Dad has a masters that he’s never used, but a public school teacher with a Masters gets more money.
He was a math teacher, and he got the degree in his 30s, and retired in his 60s…needless to say, he did the math.
And I suspect that part if f the problem is that the training, and not just for the short track for those with a degree, is the “immersive PARAMILITARY experience.”
Police are NOT paramilitary. I have the same arrest authority police do (with very few largely irrelevant exceptions); I just don’t have a department to back me up. And it is this “paramilitary” thinking that leads to shootings like this one and like the Castile shooting. It’s the mindset Randy Balco writes of in “Rise of the Warrior Cop.” Did that paramilitary mindset make a difference here? I don’t know. But that mindset leads to a great deal of unnecessary escalation of violence from law enforcement.
Howdy,
Was Noor given special treatment because of his race? Possibly. I imagine his training will be looked through in detail in what is sure to be a notable trial, the criminal one for Noor, and the civil suit for the department.
I would however suggest you take anything from Mr. Densley with a large grain of salt. He seems to have a hard on for the educational field that he is a part of. He actually did an opinion piece and went into much more detail about his perceived faults in the system.
One thing I noticed is that while he seems to do well at listing the systems many shortcomings,(in his opinion) he doesn’t give any solutions to any of them. And then this jumped out and bit me while reading,
“Officers are conditioned to view every encounter as a potential deadly force incident. Admittedly, it’s a reasonable expectation in a conceal carry state like Minnesota. Not every Minnesotan is armed, but potentially they are.”
So he seems to fault the system for conditioning officers to prepare for a deadly encounter at every contact while he seems to have been conditioned to assume that holders of carry permits are a higher risk to officers.
And no matter how long the academy he attended was, he still had six months of field training which should have exposed any serious shortcomings. I’m guessing the reports from this period will be especially interesting and might support your assertion that he was treated as a special commodity in the public relations circus.
As for the assertion that the academy trainers lack formal education, keep in mind that Minnesota has had its licensing program that requires a college education in place since the 70’s which is when I went through the program. So thirty plus years of licensing would likely result in a fairly well educated cadre of trainers.
https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2016/07/it-s-time-rethink-minnesotas-system-police-education-and-training
I, and a lot of my friends will not go downtown in Minneapolis anymore. It is not safe. They got rid of all the loitering and similar laws, now Downtown has two many packs of youths hanging around and causing troubles. Crime is up, and fear is up too.
Sunday Night bar closing used to be a near riot every weekend. Not Friday or Saturday Night, just Sunday. I haven’t heard anything this year, but the media is loathe to discuss a certain ethnic group’s behavior.
The new line seems to be, don’t blame all Somalis for one Somali Police Officer’s actions.
The very second I read that the passenger side officer discharged his sidearm “past his own driver’s side officer, through the door and or window, up or down, and into a citizen in a dialog with the driver’s side officer…….I knew it was a negligent discharge caused by an officer completely outside of department protocol.
.
There is NO WAY…there was any training which instructed officers to direct the muzzle of their sidearm toward the fellow officer while seated in the squad car, when a person approached the vehicle on the partner’s side….not a chance.
I am betting the officer was attempting to holster his sidearm and accidently fingered the trigger in the process. All I need to know is the make and model of the sidearm he was carrying.
Additionally…..this officer is already claiming, “Victim Status” in that he’s a dark skinned muslim in a majority white man police organization. In other words, ‘The Gun Did It, The Gun Did It, ..l. didn’t do anything, it just went off, Bam”.