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Judge Rules That Police Can Bar High I.Q. Scores
An anonymous reader writes "A Federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a man who was barred from the New London police force because he scored too high on an intelligence test. Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who scored too high was rejected." Update: 04/16 22:01 GMT by T : Mea culpa. This story slipped through; consider it a time-machine / late-April Fool's day joke, please.
Published: September 09, 1999
Next I propose they develop a skin pigmentation test. Those with too much skin pigmentation, too colored let's say, are to be barred from the police force. Naturally this would also be ok since the same standard was applied to everyone, right ?
Well, as it's old news, here's an old joke to go with it: "Why do policemen always go around in threes? One that can read, one that can write, and one to keep an eye on the two dangerous intellectuals."
I know the sheriff was trying to give an example of a dilemma that's likely to come up in police work, but the example he chose seems like a no-brainer, with a very clear right and wrong answer. You call in a description of your neighbor's car so other officers can look for it, then help the clerk. He'll probably be able to ID the robber or at least provide some solid clues in the event the suspect escapes the dragnet, but he can't do that if he's dead.
If you let the clerk die and fail to catch the suspect, you're no better off than you were before, and you have one more stiff in the morgue. Even if you do catch the robber, the dead clerk will still haunt your whole department, in the form of bad press and lawsuits.
One option will be second-guessed endlessly regardless of the final outcome, and the other will make you look like a hero, or at least someone who tried to help.
Reminds me of a recent case in Seattle, where a roid-raging berserker with a badge emptied his Glock into a bum who was whittling with a pocket knife, after giving him four seconds to "comply." Somebody forgot to tell him that Robocop was not a training film.