Don’t think the federal govt has any say in hiring of local cops.
They do if the local cops and municipalities are sucking the federal teat. The locals will obey too, for fear of not getting any goodies.
If you haven’t noticed, the federal government has a say in everything.
From 2001:
As the debate rages over relations between African-Americans and Cincinnati police officers, many advocates suggest a way to bridge the divide:
Hire more black cops.
Twenty-eight percent of the 1,020 officers working in the Cincinnati Police Division are black, largely because of a 20-year-old federal court order that requires a third of all recruits be minorities.
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2001/04/28/loc_racial_balance_of.html
Police Exams Put to The Test-Lawsuits, Debates Surround Efforts to Diversify Cops
Wednesday, October 28, 1998
Newsday
By now, it’s a familiar pattern.
The U.S. Justice Department swoops into a community and investigates the hiring practices of the local police force. The government finds evidence of discrimination and sues the community, charging violations of federal civil rights law.
Local police hiring usually stops because the test is in litigation. There are court battles that sometimes take years. And in the end, the local officials usually pledge to use a new test, one that is endorsed by the Justice Department. That scenario has been played out in more than 60 state and law enforcement jurisdictions nationally - including the Nassau and Suffolk police departments - as public employers struggle to find a way to diversify their police forces and comply with federal law. But now, the tests endorsed by the government to remedy the problem are themselves coming under increasing fire.
Some argue that test standards have been lowered significantly in an effort to hire more minorities. Others maintain the tests still discriminate against minorities. And after all the battling, Long Island’s police departments, like so many across the country, remain overwhelmingly white. In cities from Las Vegas to Torrance, Calif., the tests - which combine biographical questions with the traditional cognitive ones - are the subject of lawsuits and debates over whether they can really measure what makes a good cop. In Las Vegas, for example, police officials last year sought a new hiring test after a handful of officers who were hired off a test similar to Suffolk’s were later accused of criminal activity.
https://www.atlanticlegal.org/printnews.php?nid=119
Eric Holder demands more affirmative action to get more black cops in Ferguson