The Memphis Police Department is under fire after it was revealed that the standard to join the ranks of police officers had been lowered in the past.
The news comes on the heels of the deadly police beating of Tyre Nichols last month and as crime across the city surges. Not only were standards lowered but the department offered incentives in the form of signing bonuses up to $15,000 to encourage people to join the force.
It was also reported that the department provided $10,000 in relocation allowances. Previously, candidates had to have military service, previous experience in policing, or college credit but those qualifications were rolled back.
"They would allow just pretty much anybody to be a police officer because they just want these numbers," Alvin Davis, former lieutenant ini charge of recruiting at the Memphis Police Department, told the Associated Press.
The department had apparently grown desperate to fill hundreds of vacant positions, particularly as more officers quit.
More than 1,350 have quit over the last decade. As a result, the MPD considered hiring applicants with criminal histories. The police academy lowered its timing requirements during physical tests and removed the running portion of its training program because most recruits failed.
"If you lower standards, you can predict that you're going to have problems because we're recruiting from the human race," Ronal Serpas, the former head of police in Nashville and New Orleans, told the AP.
Cheddar News checks in with a coast-to-coast forecast of the weather for Friday, Aug. 25, 2023.
Anyone in the U.S. who had an account at any time between May 24, 2007, and December 22, 2022, is eligible to receive a payment. The 2022 settlement resolves a lawsuit alleging that Facebook allowed millions of its users’ personal information to be fed to Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Ashkan Bayatpour was convicted Wednesday of a state misdemeanor charge of assault and battery in a case that was remarkable for breaking through the CIA’s veil of ultra-secrecy and playing out in a public courtroom where it has emboldened a sexual misconduct reckoning.
Four people were arrested Wednesday in connection with the kidnapping of newborn twins in Detroit.
North Korea's second attempt to launch a spy satellite into orbit failed.
A pre-trial detention was extended for The Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich until Nov. 30 by Moscow.
Authorities in Oklahoma have named convicted BTK serial killer Dennis Rader as the prime suspect in two unsolved cases.
The bodies of Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and some of his top lieutenants killed in a Russian jet crash on Wednesday were sent to a nearby facility for medical and forensic analysis, according to Russian media.
Cheddar News checks in with a coast-to-coast forecast of the weather for Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023.
A scowling Donald Trump posed for a mug shot Thursday as he surrendered inside a jail in Atlanta on charges that he illegally schemed to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, creating a historic and humbling visual underscoring the former president's escalating legal troubles.
