Posted on December 22, 2017

Minneapolis to Reduce Police Psych Testing After Screening Out Too Many Minorities

Anders Hagstrom, Daily Caller, December 15, 2017

The city of Minneapolis may fire its police psychology evaluator because his tests screened out too many minority candidates, despite already lowering psych evaluations far below the national standard.

The July police shooting of Justine Damond triggered the city to scrutinize its psychological standards for police, with many claiming they’d become lax. Psychiatrist Thomas Gratzer has run psych testing for the Minneapolis police for the past five years, and in that time, he has eliminated four of the five tests used to determine whether a candidate is fit to be an officer, APM reported Thursday. Now, Gratzer is facing firing not for gutting his standard, but for screening out too many minorities.

Mohamed Noor, the officer who shot Damond, is Somali and was one of 200 cops approved by Gratzer’s standards over the past five years, which were already far below the national standard.

Minneapolis used a more standard five-test procedure up until 2012, and according to a 2004 federal study, those tests worked. The study found that the officers flagged as concerning by the tests were three times more likely to engage in misconduct, APM reported.

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