One of the most interesting, and potentially consequential outcomes of the rapid settlement by Minneapolis, is the complete avoidance of the public airing of the "alternative track" hiring process of which Noor was a member. You see, it is no secret at all that there is a HUGE number of applicants for police jobs in MN. Applicants, like Matthew Harrity, who proceeded through the legislature prescribed hiring and educational path. There are literally hundreds of applicants for every opening, and the hiring process is grueling and lengthy, and most highly qualified candidates apply for multiple openings over 1-2 years before being hired.
In fact, Harrity is often discussed in articles as being more "junior" than Noor, when in fact, Harrity had at least 2+ years experience as a Community Service Officer BEFORE he attended the police academy and was a licensed peace officer. CSOs wear uniforms, patrol in marked vehicles, and are heavily engaged in face to face interactions in the community. A large number of eventual Minneapolis officers are CSOs, as a way to objectively demonstrate their competence, desire, and engagement.
What no media article wants to say clearly is that Noor was specifically partnered with Harrity because Harrity was the much more experienced officer in the pair. The media has tried to portray Harrity as the more junior officer by hiring date, completely ignoring that while Noor was an apartment manager in the 2-3 years before he went to the academy, Harrity was in uniform in a CSO patrol car 20-30 hours a week for the same 2-3 years BEFORE attending the police academy.
https://www.insidempd.com/employment/community-service-officer/
***There is
nothing preventing individuals who will eventually enter the "alternative hiring path" from applying to become CSOs, but next to none of them take this opportunity. Why isn't being a CSO a mandatory part of the "alternative fast track" hiring process? Why is that, I wonder? The pay is pretty good, and the experience is invaluable. It would help to weed out those who are not well suited, before they attend the academy.
My personal sources do not know of a single "alternative hiring path" individual who took advantage of applying for a CSO job, but there might be a few somewhere in the past few years that did. This kind of information is not easily released to the public. And yes, the officers definitely know "who" is an alternative hiring track officer-- particularly in the first year or 2 of their employment.
IMO, the settling of the civil suit will effectively cease and prevent public discussion and public debate examining the "alternative hiring process". The legislature will not address this now, or ever, probably. This diversity program is now firmly "protected", and will continue-- despite the obvious truth that it is
not needed because of a low number of traditionally educated and experienced candidates, or because the traditional candidates are not well qualified.
The (secret!) rationale behind the alternative hiring process is that it was specifically designed to recruit (only) minority candidates, to fulfill a non-articulated quota of certain minorities,
when there continues to be a huge surplus of candidates who meet or exceed the statutory requirements.
Who exactly is it that has decided what the racial and ethnic quotas should be in the Minneapolis Police department? And what are those quotas based on? It certainly isn't public safety, right?
The dirty secret is that MPD has manufactured racial/ ethnic quotas in hiring, over education, competence, and experience. And when the racial/ ethnic candidate pool is determined by unelected bureaucrats to be "not diverse enough", they created an alternative, fast track pathway to recruit preferred ethnicities/ races.
And now Justine Damond is dead at the hands of one of the "fast track" diversity officers. That is something that should be talked about
very loudly, and very publicly.
Noor will go to prison, but the diversity fast track continues with NO public debate as to the merits and drawbacks of the program.
Imagine if we hired general surgeons on their ethnicity, and not their skills, education, and experience? Neurosurgeons? Air traffic controllers? Commercial airline pilots? At what point do we sacrifice competence, experience, and public safety for the sake of purely arbitrary ethnic and racial quotas? We need to have this discussion nationally, and loudly, IMO. Minneapolis just quickly agreed to $20 million dollars of hush money to protect their "diversity aspirations", IMO.
