Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 6, 1991 TAG: 9102060507
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Why?
Remarks last month by Chief David Hooper to the city's Community Relations Task Force contained a few clues. His comments betrayed too much complacency when aggressive recruitment programs are needed, too many excuses for not changing instead of ideas for improvement.
Still, as we noted in a Jan. 10 editorial, the chief has given Roanokers no reason to suspect he's a bigot.
We're not so sure about the thinking of C. W. Mayo, who criticized the editorial in a column published on Saturday's Editorial Page.
Mayo headed the Roanoke City Police Academy until 1983, when he retired from the city force to become director of Cardinal Criminal Justice Academy in Salem. (The Cardinal academy serves several area localities, but not the city of Roanoke.)
What he defends as "aggressive" recruiting seems to consist of mailing brochures, placing occasional newspaper ads and making "presentations at institutions of higher learning, the most distant being Virginia Commonwealth University." (What about Norfolk State? Hampton Institute? Howard University?)
Recruitment programs in the past were designed "to encompass all possible acceptable applicants, not just select groups," Mayo says.
Is he implying that, when blacks are woefully underrepresented to the detriment of the police force and its effectiveness, there is no need for targeted recruitment efforts?
Mayo repeats Chief Hooper's strange mantra about white children's being more "indoctrinated" than black children toward law-enforcement careers. But the reason he offers for this supposed cultural distinction betrays his error.
White children are more interested in becoming police officers, he says, "primarily because the majority of law-enforcement officers are white."
Which is why, even if the "indoctrination" theory were true and relevant, there would be cause to find ways of interesting black youngsters in law enforcement. (His sociological observation does not explain why some other Virginia localities have much higher percentages of blacks on their police forces.)
What's truly stunning, however, is Mayo's disquisition - in response to our observation that the military has no trouble finding black recruits - on the difference between the military and the police:
"[M]ilitary personnel engage in routine duties, except during a war, with supervisors present for guidance. . . . [P]olice are mostly on their own and must be capable of making correct decisions, often in a matter of seconds."
What is this supposed to mean?
Is he suggesting that blacks are best suited for "routine duties," while whites are suited for being "on their own" and "making correct decisions"? (Maybe it's akin to the alleged "natural buoyancy" which in some eyes makes better swimmers of whites.)
Is he saying that in the military, decisions are made by white supervisors and carried out by black underlings? (Tell that to Army Gen. Colin Powell, the black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.)
Only Mayo has suggested that anybody thinks "a black applicant, or any applicant" should "be ensured of not washing out during training."
What we said editorially was that the department should ensure that black applicants don't wash out, nor black officers resign, simply because they are made to feel unwelcome by the overwhelming whiteness of the force.
"I am surprised," writes Mayo, "the editor did not suggest the aggressive recruitment of felons, homosexuals, conscientious objectors and members of the Plowshare Peace Center, since they seem to be minorities."
Why the surprise? No one is saying the police should recruit felons or conscientious objectors. There should be surprise only if you assume that one minority is pretty much like any other; that being black, because most people in Roanoke are white, is pretty much the same as being a felon, because most people in Roanoke are law-abiding.
One wonders whether someone with Mayo's apparent outlook could ever embrace the value, much less the urgency, of recruiting black officers.
It is frightening, and perhaps meaningful, that Mayo has in the past supervised the recruitment and training of Roanoke police officers. Let's hope his attitudes don't reflect those of the department currently. If they do, the situation is worse than we thought.
by CNB