Posted on 11/02/2006 5:51:01 PM PST by BurbankKarl
To help alleviate concerns that the Los Angeles Police Department has loosened its drug policy for hiring recruits, the Personnel Department and the LAPD said they've committed to rejecting applicants who have tried methamphetamine, heroin and hard drugs other than cocaine.
Personnel and police officials noted Wednesday that they haven't actually hired anybody who has experimented with those drugs, but they wanted to make it clear they won't consider recruits who have tried hard drugs other than cocaine.
And they said they will reject candidates who tried any hard drug as a mature adult.
The decision comes after several council members questioned the LAPD's hiring standards, which were revised in 2003. The new standards allowed the department to hire officers who had tried hard drugs once or twice as teens if they were otherwise strong, responsible candidates.
The department had hired six officers who had experimented with cocaine - less than 1 percent of the officers hired over the last 2 1/2 years.
Councilman Dennis Zine, a retired police sergeant, had joined Councilman and former Police Chief Bernard Parks in challenging the hiring standard. Zine, who heads the council's Personnel Committee, hailed LAPD's revised decision. "I was concerned about the other drugs," he said. "To know that since the controversy and the motion came out, those have been taken off the table makes me feel better."
Personnel and police officials have argued that the LAPD hiring process is stronger after the 2003 changes, particularly since requiring a polygraph test.
"We have no intention of reducing the standards of the Los Angeles Police Department and we do think the process now gives us a better picture of who we are hiring," LAPD Assistant Chief Sharon Papa said.
Don't undercover narcs have to use drugs to convince the people they're infiltrating that they're not cops?
IMHO.
Undercover cops sometimes have to do things -- in the line of duty -- that candidates for the force should not have in their past.
Bizzare decline for a once proud police force
"Don't undercover narcs have to use drugs to convince the people they're infiltrating that they're not cops?"
A good friend of mine that was an undercover nark on the L.A. Sheriffs Department for 18 years wouldn't ever touch the junk.
Most of the front end dealers wouldn't think of wating themselves with it, only stupid street dealers.
I think they have to be very hard up to hire coke experimenters. Maybe that's the kind it takes to want to become a target for the L.A. gang violence.
"Mature adult"?
Doesn't that exclude about 1/2 the population (and all democrats)? ;-)
Oh, you're sooooo judgmental.
< /whiny voice >
LOL! Hold on there pardner. Sure you did, they just didn't admit to it on their application. Good grief. How about let's piss test everyone top to bottom, just to prove my point. No takers? Blackbird.
It just goes to show just how much of a third world dump LA really is. If they have to let in coke fiends and meth freaks then it must be that the force has been thoroughly corrupted by political correctness. Bye Bye LA, it was nice knowing you.
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