Addressing Police, Another Folo

UPDATE from the previous post: The council split along racial lines to vote down the 20-miles-from-the-county-line residency proposal, mostly due, it seems, to the belief that the police department is not hiring enough African-American officers.

A few months ago — and unfortunately this is all from memory — director Larry Godwin and a police academy representative were before the council. They were quick to point out that the racial split of officers follows the racial split of the city, meaning roughly 60 percent of officers are African American.

However, when they looked at the data on the applicants, the council noticed that the department had more African Americans applying than whites and the department was thus disproportionately turning away African American applicants.