The public dangers of diversity
One of the first investigative pieces I published after moving to Los Angeles fifteen years ago covered the lowering of physical standards for women applying for jobs with the LA Fire Department. Not much has changed.
Jack Dunphy has a new piece at NRO on the public dangers of diversity-mongering in the LA Police Department.
The last true meritocracy in the Los Angeles Police Department, perhaps one of the last to be found anywhere in America outside the military, is about to pass into memory. The LAPD’s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team, which since its inception in 1971 has confronted and captured thousands of murderers, robbers, kidnappers, and every other type of crazed thug imaginable, will soon be crushed under the accumulating weight of a foe it is ill-equipped to oppose and can but hope to vanquish: misguided but nonetheless inexorably advancing notions of political correctness and social engineering. And what a shame this is.
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Robert C. J. Parry, a former Army National Guard infantry officer who served in Iraq, exposed the LAPD’s plan to lower the standards for applicants to the department’s SWAT team, this with the transparent aim of placing the first female police officer in its ranks. The Times followed up with added details in this front-page, above-the-fold story last Tuesday, a story for which neither LAPD William Bratton nor anyone else in the LAPD hierarchy would comment. It appears that Bratton, who at every opportunity has proclaimed his commitment to openness and “transparency” within the department, has been caught in his own web of duplicity.
Changes to the long-established SWAT selection process have been instituted without publicity (at least until now), and without the approval or even the knowledge of the civilian Police Commission, ostensibly the policymaking board that oversees the LAPD. The changes were based on a report by a panel convened by Bratton himself and charged with, we were told at the time, investigating a 2005 incident in which a 19-month-old girl, Suzie Peña, was killed by police gunfire. The girl’s father was using her as a shield as he fired at the officers who were trying to rescue her, and she was tragically shot and killed when the officers returned fire. Remarkably, this was the only incident in the unit’s history that resulted in the death of a hostage.
While an examination of this incident was the stated purpose for Bratton’s convening of a “Board of Inquiry,” it is now clear that Suzie Peña’s death was merely a pretext, one that provided cover for Bratton to institute changes to the SWAT team based on the report of a supposedly objective panel of experts. But, as Mr. Parry pointed out in his piece, the board did not interview even a single officer involved in the Peña incident. Moreover, it is now clear that many of the board’s members were selected neither for their objectivity nor their expertise, but rather for their willingness to produce a report that supported the changes Bratton already sought to implement. Only one member of the board had SWAT experience (and what a lonely ordeal it must have been for him), while the others were either police executives or lawyers. None of the members were LAPD officers.
Among its criticisms of the LAPD’S SWAT team, the Board of Inquiry found that its culture is “insular.” And indeed it can — and should — be. In any organization, be it a business, a branch of the military, or a police department, a subgroup’s insularity is bound to be commensurate with differences in the standards applied to it and those applied to the larger group. When the LAPD’s SWAT team is no longer insular, it will only mean that its members are no longer held to a meaningfully higher standard than is the rest of the police department. As I’ve observed over my long career with the department, it often takes little in the way of intelligence or skills to rise to the very highest levels in the LAPD, but you have to be special to get into SWAT. Until recently, that is…
Read the whole thing.
Let’s have an honest conversation about this, shall we?
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Does anyone wonder why police officers, in general, are insular? They are hired to put their lives on the line to protect the public, but then spend their entire careers trying to cover their a**es, and having to deal with clueless bureaucrats, and educated idiots. Truly a thankless job…
The active and artificial proponence of “diversity” lowers the bar of expectation, hinders achievement, and dilutes the constituent glue of merit and reward that ultimately holds society together…
in this case, it will probably result in the deaths of innocents…
but hey, it’s worth it, right, because all my teachers have said so!
This is the same stuff they’re doing in every facet of life - you don’t want to upset anybody’s sensitivities.
In school, it’s the “Everybody get’s an ‘A’” mentality.
In children’s sports, everybody gets a trophy.
Nobody’s special… everyone is normal and none can rise above or below.
It’s the dumbing-down of America.
Lower the standards so that everyone has a fair chance. Even if they can’t perform to standards… oh, wait, NOW they can!!
I expect that, at some point, we will realize the errors of our ways and change policies to correct our path. But, I doubt it will come anytime soon.
and if the applicant happens to be blind and wants to join the SWAT team.. have to lower the requirements for that as well.
They’ve been doing it in the local schools in Florida for years … Now the FCAT testing is discriminatory so they are trying to reduce it to 50%. This is despite the fact that grades and education levels are increasing. And what will be the other 50% — feel good self esteem building teaching.
And you wonder why the USA no longer in in the top twenty industrial country in level of education.
Anyone remember the movie GI Jane? That proved exactly this same thing at the end when there was a wounded person and I was expecting to see Demi Moore pick a person from the battle field if they really wanted to prove their point, but instead the never had this happened because she could not.
Moreover, it is now clear that many of the board’s members were selected neither for their objectivity nor their expertise, but rather for their willingness to produce a report that supported the changes Bratton already sought to implement.
But, I’ll bet that if Bratton, or his children, ever find themselves taken hostage, he’ll want the LAPD to send in only the best of the best. Not the most mediocore of the mediocore.
Let’s play Devil’s Advocate: jamming women into SWAT teams might make sense, in a perverse sort of way.
A major drawback of women police officers on regular patrols/beats is that they end up shooting people more often than their male counterparts. Why? Because they’re not physically suited to use “intermediate” force. As soon as 200-pound bad guy decides it’s time to wrestle, 98-pound female police-person is at a serious if not lethal disadvantage.
But then, if anybody’s going to be expected to solve thorny problems with a “shoot first” approach, wouldn’t it be a SWAT team?
here’s a good read for the PC crowd:
http://seanbryson.com/articles/pc_history.html
What is the purpose of having an elite organization if you lower the standards so anyone can get in?
It’s no longer elite.
What’s next? McDonalds employees building nuclear reactors I guess.
Why does everybody everywhere have to have a piece of what everybody everywhere else has??? Michelle, I would like some of the respect people give you. I don’t blog, probably wouldn’t be good at it anyway, BUT, i just don’t think it is fair that you have these loyal readers of your site and I don’t. (Please note the sarcasm in that last sentence)Maybe we should drop all standards for everything. Heck, if you have one arm and are blind, why shouldn’t you go for the crack shot position of your local PD???? I’m beginning to think that “grown-ups” cry more than babies.
Chief? Chief?
And those Navy Seals only want people who can swim! That has to stop too…
The word “elite” seems to rankle the “below average” for some reason.
Not always true - I have a good female friend who was part of an LAPD gang unit, and she got into a number of physical match-ups with gang members much, much larger than her. It’s how you fight, sometimes, more than size.
That said, despite being a female and a “minority,” she finds the idea of lowering the bar to accommodate gender and race quotas within the police department despicable and stupid.
This is an issue that has always irked me. I am not in favor of most modern manifestations of feminism, but that does not mean I don’t think women should be given opportunities. I’m all for a female SWAT Team member, if she can meet all the requirements that every other member is currently required to meet.
Who the heck benefits from lowering the standards? No one. Not even the first female officer to make it to LAPD’s SWAT Team.
When I was a senior in High School a sophomore girl (a clearly sophomoric one at that) make a stink and got onto the football team. She had some soccer experience and they trotted her out every once in a while for a non-crucial kick, but the bottom line was that she just wasn’t good enough to have made the team on her own athletic ability. Plus, it turned out she didn’t do it because she loved football and yearned to play; she only did it to make a fuss about women being allowed anywhere men are, no matter what. Again, who benefits?
This sounds very familiar of what Virginia Military Institute went through in the early 1990’s when a young lady sued to get into the all male corps of cadets.
She won her case, and then showed up to VMI 20 pounds overweight, out of shape, and dropped out before she could complete the intial summer training.
Of course, its ok for women to have their segregated colleges, but not ok for men to have theirs. I wonder what would happen if a guy sued to get in and was rejected based on gender?
GSP
You mean the same Chief Bratton that punished his officers for doing their job, That Chief Bratton?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701640.html
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/05/03/news/state/16_72_175_2_07.txt
http://www.pakistanlink.com/Community/2003/Nov03/21/02.html
The point is well taken, of course. But the overall figures of female police officers having to resort to deadly force are what they are; and I can vividly recall watching a recording of a female officer being nearly beaten to death by a parole-violator at a traffic stop (filmed conveniently by her own police cruiser’s camera).
At least on a SWAT team, there’s the clear anticipation if not expectation in advance that deadly force may be required up front.
#13 On March 24th, 2008 at 2:53 pm, JsinGood said:
“As soon as 200-pound bad guy decides it’s time to wrestle, 98-pound female police-person is at a serious if not lethal disadvantage.
Not always true - I have a good female friend who was part of an LAPD gang unit, and she got into a number of physical match-ups with gang members much, much larger than her. It’s how you fight, sometimes, more than size.”
And how would your female friend fare going against a 200-250 lb. gang-unit trained police officer who, in addition to his size, strength, and speed, has been trained how to fight smart?
“It’s how you fight, sometimes, more than size.”
OK.
Besides the “sometimes”, what about all the other times?
Ready for a little true story time. My last asignment in the Army was as an instructior at the Infantry school at Ft Benning, GA. One of the ranges i was responsible for was the hand grenades. Congress, on one of their political correctness tours, came for a visit. They were revisiting the question of women in the Infantry. While at the hand grenade range a certain female senator from CO who will remain nameless asked me why was it necessary for female soldiers to throw a hand grenade the same distance as a male soldier. There was this very pregnant pause and finally I spoke up. Because Ma’am there are no male and female grenades. They all have the same blast radius and you must be able to throw it far enough away to keep yourself out of the blast. Most of the folks in BDU’s standing around had tears coming out of their eyes and blood from their lips from trying to stifle the snickers and laughter. I figured that was the end of it when she had a follow up question. Turning to the COL on site she asked him why hadn’t this possibilty been explored?
I think 3 people were treated for hernias from stifiling the laughter. And she was serious! The poor COL put together some kine of answer, but that just shows you how clueless the beaurcrats are.
/Patsy Schroder
Personal anecdote — several years ago I was walking at a local trail and a dozen soldiers were training there, running in full gear. Eleven men, one woman. The woman wasn’t cutting it, so one man on each side held her up so she could keep up with the rest of them. Sounds like a problem to me. What a sexist I am, if by “sexist” is meant an acknowledgement of basic differences between the sexes.
Great story (and fantastic response to the senator.) I really cannot understand the ignorance of some people.
I also fail to understand how it is in the interest of modern feminism (for I assume the senator would call herself a feminist) to make different standards for men and women. If men and women are truly as equal as some would have us believe, if the only difference (aside from certain body parts) is environmental stimulus, any woman should be able to meet the same physical standards as men. Yes? I suppose perhaps feminists are afraid to confront that because it would topple their house of cards.
This website will make everyone appreciate our law enforcement officers a whole lot more.
http://www.odmp.org/
Officer down…
This is a point of serious contention with a lot of guys I consider close friends. Chief Bratton has, for a very long time, been looking for an excuse, ANY excuse, to “revamp” LAPD’s SWAT team. He says the team “lacks diversity”. He takes issue with the fact that only 12% of the SWAT team is black, but ignores the fact that 12.6% of the ENTIRE LAPD is black. Bratton is on his own little crusade, and will do whatever he has to in order to preserve his political career.
The report is a joke. It states that “there is no task in SWAT that a woman can not perform” and that the selection criteria has “underemphasized negotiating skills, patience, empathy and flexibility while overemphasizing physical prowess and tactical acumen.”
I’m sorry, but apparently these non-SWAT, non-police officer board members aren’t familiar with how SWAT operates. SWAT team members are not negotiators. They are not counselors, and they are not Dr. Phreakin’ Phil. They are strong, mean, hairy-arsed individuals for whom “tactical acumen” is not a buzzword, but a job description. A SWAT officer understands that on a call out, all the hostages lives are ALREADY LOST. It’s their job to save as many of those lost souls as they can. This is a job at which LAPD SWAT excels. In all their years of their existance, they have only lost one, ONE, hostage.
I don’t care the gender, race, or sexual preference of the person. If it’s a squad of 250 pound lesbians, so be it. So long as they are the BEST at the job.
Sorry about the mini-rant, but this is one of those things that just burns buns. I’ve had to deal with similar crap in my line of work, and when men I consider to be brothers have to go through the same, it burns my ass.
Lowering standards in every job is inevitable, considering the public education given out in America! How else will they be able to fill the positions?
IMHO, home schoolers are our hope for a decent future. Especially those home schoolers who are taught history. I suggest America, The Last Best Hope, volumes one and two, by Dr. Bennett as your history text. God bless you homeschooling families!
SWAT members and the sheepdog’s sheepdog and the meek or mild need not apply. Read the follow for a definition of a sheepdog:
ON SHEEP, WOLVES, AND SHEEPDOGS
By LTC(RET) Dave Grossman, RANGER, Ph.D.,author of “On Killing.”
Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so
because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things
that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that
may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as
always,even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending?
What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? - William J. Bennett - in
a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997
One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me:
“Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle,
productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident.” This is
true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the
aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that
the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another.
Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes
every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of
violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that
the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in
a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are
committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is
considerably less than two million.
Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We
may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still
remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who
are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme
provocation. They are sheep.
I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty,
blue robin’s egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into
something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell.
Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and
someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.?
For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.
“Then there are the wolves,” the old war veteran said, “and the wolves feed
on the sheep without mercy.” Do you believe there are wolves out there who
will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil
men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget
that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in
denial.
“Then there are sheepdogs,” he went on, “and I’m a sheepdog. I live to
protect the flock and confront the wolf.”
If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive
citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for
your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf.
But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your
fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who
is walking the hero’s path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness,
into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed
Let me expand on this old soldier’s excellent model of the sheep, wolves,
and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes
them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world.
They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire
extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their
kids’schools.
But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer
in their kid’s school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be
killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep’s
only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone
coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the
path of denial.
The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf.
He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that
the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep
dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and
removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a
representative democracy or a republic such as ours.
Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there
are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn’t tell them where to
go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in
camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the
sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, “Baa.”
Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide
behind one lonely sheepdog.
The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high
school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had
the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had
nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT
teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically
peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs
feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door.
Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on
the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently
about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how
many times you heard the word hero?
Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it
is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny
critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the
breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a
righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle.
The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound
of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.
Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend
the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the
attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in
America said, “Thank God I wasn’t on one of those planes.” The sheepdogs,
the warriors, said, “Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those
planes. Maybe I could have made a difference.” When you are truly
transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into
warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference.
There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he
does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to
survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the
population. There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals
convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious,
predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement
officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by
body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They
chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of
the herd that is least able to protect itself.
Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically
primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose
which one they want to be, and I’m proud to say that more and more Americans
are choosing to become sheepdogs.
Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored
in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on
Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an
operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When he learned of the
other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his
phone and uttered the words, “Let’s roll,” which authorities believe was a
signal to the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one
hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business
people and parents. — from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the
wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.
There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of
evil men. - Edmund Burke
Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police
officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep,
are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They
didn’t have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can
be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.
If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you
must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved
ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If
you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt
you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you
want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior’s path, then you must make a
conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare
yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes
knocking at the door.
For example, many officers carry their weapons in church.? They are well
concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters
tucked into the small of their backs.? Anytime you go to some form of
religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your
congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual
in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to massacre you and your
loved ones.
I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the break,
one officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other
cop replied, “I will never be caught without my gun in church.” I asked why
he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a cop he knew who was
at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. In that incident, a
mentally deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning
down fourteen people. He said that officer believed he could have saved
every life that day if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot,
and all he could do was throw himself on the boy’s body and wait to die.
That cop looked me in the eye and said, “Do you have any idea how hard it
would be to live with yourself after that?”
Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was
carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably
scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for
“heads to roll” if they found out that the airbags in their cars were
defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids’
school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic
accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them.
Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their
response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks
himself, “Do you have and idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if
your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly
because you were unprepared for that day?”
It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically
destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is
counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and
horror when the wolf shows up.
Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you
are not physically prepared: you didn’t bring your gun, you didn’t train.
Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills
you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are
psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at your
moment of truth.
Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11 book,
which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our
current world situation: “…denial can be seductive, but it has an
insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by
saying it isn’t so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all
the more unsettling.”
Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small
print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some
level.
And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his
life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes.
If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step
outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the
bad man will not come today. No one can be “on” 24/7, for a lifetime.
Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and
you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to
yourself…
“Baa.”
This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It
is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a
continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other
end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the
other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in
America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a
few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors
started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up
that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you
and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your
moment of truth.
That’s right. And, once this organization is no longer elite, then the people who worked hard to be a part of an elite group will no longer have pride (or trust!) in the group, then they will quit rather than subject themselves to harm, and the vacancies will be filled in accordance with the lower standards. This group will fall apart quickly. Unfortunately.
The sexist double standard of expecting less from women is alive and well, not only in our police departments, but in our military as well, including our service academies.
The Air Force Academy boasted about the class of 2011 being 20 some odd percent female. I wonder how many can accomplish the male minimum of 7 pull ups? To me it seemed they were announcing that roughly 20 percent of the new class couldn’t pass the PFT.
Unfortunately for those who put themselves in harms way for the sake of others, it only gets worse as you progress, as your life becomes an “acceptable risk” so that an inept politician can bolster his or her numbers with the loony left and enabler media.
Truly sickening.
Reg
Tell the ladys of the view about it. Got White Guilt? Apparently not enough to satifsy these women..Why is the Democrat Party behaving so self distructive? I mean really they are in the throws of a real knock out drag down fight. Caucasian people bad everyone else good…that’s called racism. Assigning sterotypes to people because of the color of their skin. ABC’S the View, how many people who watch these women, are Caucasian? I can spell Stupid, can Joy Behar?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/justin-mccarthy/2008/03/24/joy-behar-oppressed-minorities-cant-be-racist
When I teaching at the FAA Academy I had a class of several veterans, one of whom was a young female. She just could not understand why she should do the same physical test levels as the males for graduation in combat infantry. Those of us older hands were glad to offer a compromise of certain physcial level for admin and support types, but a rigid cutoff for combat infantry - male or female. If you can’t haul that 60 pound pack, a weapon, plus ‘extras’ like machine gun ammo, you don’t belong on the line. You will only endanger the person next to you. And… to a man, all us old guys said we would welcome any female that could make the cut to stand next to us when the you-know-what hit the fan. She still couldn’t get it. Never will. The brain washing was too deep.
“The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal”
–Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, 1961.
He was well ahead of his times.
The US military has suffered this problem for quite some time, but the PC mentality has taken a recent upswing.
One of the primary reasons I left active duty.
Why can’t we just let men be men and women be women? Fine….go….be a man. I don’t envy your penii at all. I don’t want to be a man….with all the benefits of being a girl too. What is wrong with people these days????
Unfortunately, LAPD SWAT is doing nothing new. If anything, they’re behind the power curve.
Google Kathleen Wilder. The results should sickitate you.
Hmmmmm, I think I am OK with this… I mean, my sister can shoot straight, so why not?
I don’t really care how many pull-ups a shooter can do… just don’t lower the marksmanship standards. And hats off to the girls in the IDF.
No, I don’t really don’t care who
shoots the bad guys, so long as they get shot.
I don’t care who shoots the bad guys either, as long as they get shot. The problem I have with diversity enforcement is this: I have been in a few situations where we had to hire new people and after looking through resumes and first interviews, someone always says, “Let’s hire this person, we don’t have one of those.” Our departments have diversity quotas. It seems wrong.
cmw2204, no arugument from me.
I don’t want quotas of any kind, just the opposite… hire on merit. If she can shoot better than he, so be it.
I don’t think anyone here has a problem with the “merit” argument. I could care less who serves with me -as long as they can do the job in its entirety-.
When you start lowering standards to allow for a lack of ability just so you can pad your ethnic/gender quota numbers, that is when you have problems.
I agree as well brooklyn red. If they can put a bullet in a terrorist head (domestic or foreign) they have my support. No quotas.
And when the confrontation no longer requires a sharp shooter and progresses to hand to hand? Or as the article points out, perform an egress with a 250lb wounded team member?
Youm missed the point of the article. Cheif Bratton could care less if the person is a straight shooter or not. The new SWAT standards do not include any of the classic tests. There is no more shoot house. There is no stress induced firing lanes. You say your sister is a good shot. A good shot on a square range does not always translate to a good shot on the two way range. Can your sister keep her breathing and heart rate under control enough to put lead on a 5% solution after rushing 200 yards across a parking lot in full roll out kit? And what about after the shooting stops? Is she physically able to take a team mate, a full grown man, in excess of 200 pounds, wearing another 40-80 pounds of kit, and drag him out of harm’s way after he’s been hit?
I’ll agree that so long as the standards are met, gender shouldn’t enter into the equation. And so far, it hasn’t. There is nothing in LAPD policy that prevents women from applying. Some have in the past. None have been able to MEET THE STANDARD.
Shooting is integral to being a SWAT officer, or a door kicker of any kind. But it is not everything. Despite what some would have you believe, physical prowess IS required.
Archon, I stand corrected.
I demand that the NFL open its ranks to womyn!
Crime does keep rising in many areas, and if your cops look like some of our cops you can visibly see why.
Many of them, men and women, are HUGE…and I don’t mean muscles.
Look around at a game, be it NFL or MLB at the local cops hired for security and see the ’shape’ of some of the men and women, they couldn’t catch my grandma ( yes she is typical).
If SWAT goes the same route, no criminal will will ever get caught in just a few years.
It sure wasn’t this way 30 years ago, cops were fit.
Sad diversity PC crap indeed.
Well said at 8:49, Archon. Well said.
Hollywood is responsible for much of this airheadedness. In movies and on TV, 120# women regulary karate kick the krap out of 250# male bruisers, leaving them crying for mercy.
Our kids see this silliness so many times growing up, (and get in actual physical altercations so rarely), that they believe it is a reflection of reality.
So naturally, they think women would do just fine as SEALs, Rangers, or SWAT members.
brooklyn red, I think that SWAT experts might be better qualified for optimizing the criteria by which candidates and graduates are selected for their program (as long as they are attempting to make the teams better).
This doesn’t say whether or not the Board found that the “insular” culture was negative or otherwise to blame for the death. Does anyone know if this was one of the Board’s findings?
It is moronic to imply that insular equals bad.
There’s nothing wrong with a culture being insular unless the culture itself is bad. In such a case, the insularity impedes a positive cultural change.
It’s quite possible that LAPD SWAT has a bad culture. However, 1) I haven’t heard this claim, and 2) even if it is true, while relaxing the standards might someday reduces the insularity, it certainly doesn’t address what was bad about the culture.
Who is more intimidating? A large female police officer, or a large male police officer?
How about an averaged sized female officer, whom is really smart, or an average sized male officer whom is really smart?
A female officer with a black belt in some martial art form, or a male officer with the same? (Duh, I know…how would one know?)
My point is, men are more intimidating than women when wearing black and carrying weapons. That is deterrent, and makes the composition of SWAT forces important for safety, and trust reasons!
Hey Lucy,
Just checking in as I’m working harder now on my actual business and don’t get to stop by much anymore. . .
but here’s my two cents. Diversity is not something that society should attempt for some ‘nirvana’. The idea that diversity is good stems from the idea that every society is good and there is no bad within a diverse society.
That’s the problem. Diversity means BOTH the good and the bad of society. So for example, with Islam we get a bunch of people dedicated to their god, but we also get the suicide bombers as well. You can’t have a ‘diverse’ society that only has the good parts of each society.
Diversity is a red herring put forth by the media.
This is probably one of the most incoherent posts that I’ve made in a while. . . but I’ve been studying and reading and learning and my brain is near mush by now.
Corkie, #46
The findings of the board were inconclusive at best. The initial reason for convening the board was to find out if there was a definciency in the operations that led to the death of Suzie Pena. Instead, Cheif Bratton used the board as an excuse to push his political agenda, and even then, questions like yours were left unanswered.
Elite organizations are insular by nature. In a group like SWAT, the Rangers, SF, or anything similar, you are dealing with a group of highly motivated, type A personalities. These people are self starters who constantly strive to achieve the peak of their operational capacity. They know that they need to depend on the other people in their group for their very lives. This develops some pretty close bonds within that group. You work with the same people, day in and day out, trusting them to do their job and watch your back, and they in turn are trusting you to do the same. Yes, it creates an insular mentality. But that is not a bad thing. It makes them better. It pushes them harder.
That’s a great story, Grunt. Sad but true.
Did you ever hear about a Colonel John T. Corley while you were with Infantry at Ft. Benning?
Well, it’s like I stated. Insularity isn’t bad unless it creates a barrier to positive change or improvement (which I’ve seen many times). However, I agree that insularity, alone, is not a bad thing.
Or the pendulum swings to the other extreme, my kids school has skewed the curve so that my boy in 6th grade getting 85% is considered a C student; should he ever get into even the high 70s he’ll be a D student…there was a time that 72 or, at worst 75% was considered good for a C. “A” & “B” grades are both squeezed into the 90-100% bracket.
Depends who is writing the test. In my test 60 was about an average score. I saw tests as learning experienced and felt free to ask the hard questions.
Archon is dead on. I had a good job teaching marksmanship for a while, and frankly the best shots at the end were almost always women that had never shot before. I don’t debate their ability to shoot but I seriously question their ability to get themsleves and their gear into the right place and time to execute actions on the objective. i have serious issues with the fact that when they can’t pull their own weight (literally), a man will have to step up and assume extra risk. At that point, you don’t have a team. I have seen female Human Intelligence soldiers struggle here in Iraq. Get over it, LAPD, there are clear, biological differences between men and women, and to think otherwise will get a man (or woman) killed in the line of duty.
Precisely. And how many more altercations will a smaller woman get into because she is assessed by an assailant as an “easy target” that would not occur with a larger male officer?
To wit: not to be too precise, but a smaller (under 5 feet, slight of frame), roughly retirement age woman friend of mine was traveling in Philly and was almost carjacked. I say almost because
she pulled her rather large handgun out of her purse and put it into the perp’s face. He ran (probably soiled himself as well). She is a crack shot and was on her way to a marksmanship competition. LOL!