YOUNGSTOWN POLICE Sergeant: Strengthen minority recruitment

The minority list apparently wasn't mentioned to police candidates.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Minority recruiting is essential to achieving diversity in police hirings, Detective Sgt. Delphine Baldwin Casey says.
"It must be proactive all year round, not just a few weeks or months before the civil service exam is given," said Casey, officer in charge of the planning and training division.
Casey, also a spokeswoman for the Black Knights Police Association, said officers hired "must reflect the makeup of the community." That doesn't mean, she said, that the black community wants unqualified blacks hired.
The city is nearly 50 percent black. Roughly 25 percent of the 190-member police department are minorities, including women.
Casey is putting together a 10-week police school that she said will serve as a good way to recruit minorities. Participants will meet officers and visit various units and divisions within the police department. She expects the school to be ready by early fall.
Casey also envisions visiting criminal justice departments at local universities to promote law enforcement as a career. She said those interested should know that having police officer training, which costs around $2,800, earns them bonus points on civil service exams.
Encouraging minorities
Over the years, whites have scored at the top of civil service exams in part because more whites than blacks take the tests, Casey said. She wants to encourage more minorities to take the exam and study hard to improve their chances of doing well.
"It is no secret to anyone in the police department how I feel about being hired on just a test score," Casey said. "So what if someone scores 100 -- there is still the issue of character and integrity."
She said police tests should not contain race or gender bias.
Recruiting teams in the past have had difficulty enticing blacks because of their perception of the police, Casey said. She knows the difficulties firsthand, having served as a recruiter.
Casey said she intends, during upcoming recruiting, to give examples of past civil service tests and provide study guides.
Casey's comments come in the wake of a lawsuit that challenges the June 2005 police hirings of a black man, white woman and black woman who ranked No. 10, No. 13 and No. 127, respectively, on the civil service exam. The test was given in September 2003.
White ex-cop filed suit
Youngstown attorney Dennis Haines filed the lawsuit on behalf of James Conroy, a white former city police officer. Conroy, initially terminated in 2000, was rehired in a settlement and then resigned in 2001. Conroy was fired for ordering a man's arrest as retribution, believing the man testified against him in an internal affairs investigation, according to Vindicator files. The city, uncertain of winning at arbitration, entered into the settlement.
In 2003, Conroy took the civil service test for patrol officer and ranked No. 6 on the eligibility roster. His lawyer wants a judge to enjoin the city from making permanent those hired who ranked lower.
Conroy's reverse discrimination lawsuit is pending in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. A hearing is set for May 31.
Haines called the hiring of Dorothy Johnson, who ranked No. 127 on the civil service exam, "the most blatant case of favoritism" he's ever seen. Johnson has not responded to requests to comment.
Johnson, Casey said, "was one of the many fine black" students she instructed at the police academy. Casey doesn't know why other candidates above Johnson were not considered for employment.
Two applicant lists
The city, despite having no federal consent decree, created two lists of applicants -- one that contained the names of 15 white men who ranked in the top 25 overall on the master civil service eligibility roster and one that contained the names of 28 minorities who ranked as low as No. 191 on the master list.
Last month, Law Director Iris Guglucello told the city's human relations commission that, without a consent decree, deviating from civil service rules to hire minorities is wrong. She told the commission, however, that minority hiring goals would be something to raise as a possible defense in the Conroy lawsuit.
The city, after a class-action lawsuit in the late 1970s, entered into a consent decree in 1986, and it expired four years later, records show.
Casey said that she understands that the city is no longer under a consent decree but that the police department has historically been unfair in hiring blacks and women. She believes terms of the consent decree should have continued via more lawsuits.
Haines, meanwhile, said not just whites but minorities who scored above Johnson should be angry.
How applicants feel
Mark Williams, who is black, said he isn't angry over Johnson's hiring, but added, "I don't think it's fair. It's not fair. They need to change the system."
Williams, who works for the city's housing and demolition department, ranked No. 31 on the master civil service roster and showed up as No. 8 on the minority list, 11 ahead of Johnson.
Williams, 36, said he was an MP in the Army National Guard and before that was an intelligence analyst in the Army for 10 years.
"I got called up for 18 months after 9/11," Williams said of his National Guard service. "I had to leave my city job."
Williams wasn't aware that the city had created a minority list. He said he was not contacted for an interview last summer for the patrol officer openings and doesn't think any of his references were called.
"I'm not bragging, but I'm squeaky clean. I had a top secret security clearance" in the Army, Williams said. "They didn't find anything then. ... So if they can't find anything I can assure you Youngstown police won't find anything."
Williams said he's attending a business college now at night and will likely use a portion of his GI bill for police training.
"I look at it from a pride standpoint -- I just want to serve my hometown," Williams said.
The city, without divulging details, has suggested that Johnson, after elimination of those above her because of background or failure to show for interviews, may have ended up in the top 10 on the minority list. The city administered voice stress analysis tests only to the three people hired last summer.
Agility tests were scheduled for the top 60 scorers on the civil service exam, regardless of race or gender. Agility tests were also scheduled for minorities only who ranked from No. 69 to No. 191, records show.
No. 4 in testing
Gwen Graham, a 31-year-old white Marine Corps veteran who works three part-time jobs -- including as a Brookfield cop -- was ranked No. 4 on the civil service test given in 2003.
Graham wasn't aware that a minority list had been created. Her name shows up as No. 1 on the minority list.
Graham learned about the minority hirings when she read a story in The Vindicator a week ago. She wasn't pleased to discover that a black woman who ranked No. 127 was hired.
"It irritated me, to say the least," Graham said.
Aside from Brookfield, Graham, of Liberty, works part time at a Walgreens and dispatches part time for Liberty police.
She happened to be dispatching for Liberty when a teletype arrived from Youngstown listing the top 40 scorers on the 2003 civil service test. The teletype asked that anyone with information about the candidates call Youngstown police, she said.
Graham said she had Brookfield Police Chief Dan Faustino and Mary Louise Gardner, supervisor of Liberty dispatchers, call.
Graham said she doubts much of her background was checked because no one called her references. Also, she was told that she'd be scheduled for a psychological evaluation and voice stress analysis test, but that never happened.
"Maybe they knew they were going to hire [Johnson] from the beginning," Graham said.
Council, as it did in 2003, enacted an ordinance before the December 2005 civil service test for police that allows it to suspend or alter the appointment rules for minority hiring.
Of the 108 men and women who took the test in December 2005, 48 passed. Graham is ranked No. 1, and Conroy, who has the pending lawsuit, is ranked No. 2. No blacks scored in the top 20, records show.
meade@vindy.com