New York City Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton says that his comments about hiring black police officers were "totally misrepresented" by the British newspaper The Guardian.
Bratton is calling on The Guardian to retract its story, published on Tuesday, in which it reported that Bratton said the NYPD was having problems
recruiting more black police officers because so many have criminal records, partly due to the unintended consequences of the former practice of stop-and-frisk,
Newsday reported.
"The original interview was done by one reporter, then they had a second reporter who took the first reporter's story and totally misrepresented it in the second article," Bratton told Newsday.
"My comment on stop, question and frisk impacting on recruiting was the potential alienation of black men, minority men, because of frequent stops by police," Bratton said. "But stop, question and frisk stops have no impact in terms of the screening process we do on hiring."
He added that "nothing about having been stopped, even if there is a record of it ... is reviewed by us that would work against a minority candidate wanting to be a New York City police officer."
Although the NYPD commissioner, however, did tell Newsday that it's an "unfortunate fact" that there are a high percentage of black males who have prison records, which means that they will never become police officers.
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