Cops hired despite arrests or rejections

The Sun-Times has more about the process to become a Chicago Police officer. It could be argued that it's not as meritorius as some think it should be:

The Chicago Sun-Times explored a little-known appeals process for police applicants blackballed because of problems in their backgrounds.

Of 221 who appealed, 79 people were returned to the hiring list by the city's Human Resources Board between 2005 and 2007, records show.

One-hundred twenty-eight were kept off the hiring list and another 14 withdrew their appeals.

Many of those returned to the hiring list are related to current or retired cops who spoke on their behalf. Three times, aldermen successfully went to bat for rejected applicants.

The appeals process was originally designed to prevent racial bias in hiring, but none of the appeals reviewed by the Sun-Times alleged discrimination.

Former Police Supt. Phil Cline, who retired last year, fought unsuccessfully to remove the Human Resources Board from police hiring decisions.

"I remember I had people that we said we did not want to hire -- and they [the Human Resources Board] told us to put them on the list and hire them. Some of those officers did not do well at all," said retired Chicago Police Cmdr. Brad Woods, who ran the department's personnel division under Cline and former Supt. Terry Hillard.

Woods said the department tried to block the hiring of officers with gang associations or minor crimes like petty theft or drug possession in their backgrounds -- only to be overruled by the Human Resources Board.

"If you have a tendency to steal or commit a theft, there is a chance you will do that again. You are not honest. . . . They might be fine to work at Home Depot, but they should not have a job carrying a gun and being exposed to all the opportunities [for misconduct] on the street," Woods said.

Woods said he does not think the Human Resources Board has followed a consistent set of rules.

"They did not have any real hard, documentable evidence of what makes someone hirable or not," he said, pointing out that he and former Chicago Police general counsel Sheri Mecklenburg met with the Human Resources Board in 2007 to discuss their misgivings about the appeals process.

"If you are rejected by another police department, we shouldn't hire you," Woods said. "There are people that got on [the Chicago Police Department] that I question."

Hat-tip to The Bench.

I touched upon this story on Sunday although in that case it was about the difficulty of firing police officers.