Denver Post

Black cop's battle to join force raises city hiring issues
By David Migoya and Jason Felch
Denver Post Staff Writers

Friday, August 01, 2003 - Newly hired Denver police officer Melinda Carney fought to get her badge.

She fought so hard to become a cop that she went to court to prove that the place where she so desperately wanted to work, the Denver Police Department, discriminated against black applicants. Carney, 36, is African-American.

The city last year backed down from a protracted federal court battle in which it repeatedly declared Carney was unfit to wear a badge and gun in Denver.

Carney was a bad police candidate, the city claimed, for a number of reasons. Those, the city contended, included an altercation with her pastor, dismissal from a Colorado university for starting a dorm-room fire, marijuana usage, an intimidating personality and poor job references.

Carney said, and a federal judge agreed, that most of the city's reasons for not hiring her were overstated, mischaracterized and, in some cases, "weak at best."

Instead, the city's method of hiring police officers was arbitrary and capricious, Carney said.

And, she said, it was racist. Whites with checkered pasts were hired, she said, as blacks with similar backgrounds were rejected.

The case is a window into the department's troubled hiring system, which recently came under fire after disclosures that officer Jim Turney, who fatally shot 15- year-old Paul Childs last month, was hired in 1998 over qualified white candidates only because he is of Asian descent.

Turney ranked last among 158 candidates for the academy that year. Had Carney been hired, she and Turney would have been academy classmates, records show.

"I grew up here, and I love this city," Carney said Thursday. "It's not a racist organization."

Behind Carney's lawsuit, her lawyer says, is a broader issue: Higher-scoring black candidates, he said, were rejected in favor of lower-ranked ones who might be less likely to succeed. "When you get to the bottom of the list, odds are they won't make it," lawyer Gregory Eurich said.

Assistant City Attorney Richard Stubbs strongly denies that the police hiring system is racist. The city settled Carney's case last year, he said, because factors that blocked her employment in 1998 were more than 3 years old, and under department policy were less likely to be used against her.

Still, Carney had to pass the required psychological and background exams before she could get into the academy. She did and got her badge June 20.

"It's serious business to give someone a badge and gun, and we required her to prove she was fit," Stubbs said. "We would not have settled the case if there was a continuing concern about her carrying a firearm for the Denver Police Department."

The department operates under a court-mandated affirmative action hiring plan in which minorities often are considered for police jobs over better-scoring white applicants. The Hogue Decree ensures minorities are hired at a rate reflecting the city's demographics.

That means African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians who pass the battery of tests to get into the academy are given preferential treatment. Currently 11 percent of each class must be African-American.

The safety manager appoints new officers from a list of applicants the Civil Service Commission says passed all the tests. Candidates can be rejected without explanation, presumably for something negative in their background.

Sometimes, though, lower-ranking blacks with troubled pasts were hired over higher-ranking blacks. That came into focus three years ago when black police recruit Ellis "Max" Johnson II was hired despite admissions of extensive drug use, stealing from an employer and rejections by more than 20 other police departments.

Safety Manager Tracy Howard was unavailable Thursday to comment on the department's current hiring criteria.

In the Carney case, federal District Judge Edward Nottingham agreed that, despite the Hogue Decree, whites who admitted past problems became officers while qualified blacks were rejected.

"There is evidence to support the conclusion that similarly situated non-African-American applicants were treated more favorably than (Carney)," Nottingham wrote in August 2001, denying the city's bid to dismiss the case.

Rejecting Carney, Nottingham said, was "merely a pretext for racial discrimination."

Records show that one white recruit hired over Carney smoked marijuana at least 10 times over a decade, smoked hashish and took speed within eight years of entering the academy. Another admitted to taking cocaine.

Carney admitted to twice smoking marijuana eight years before applying to the academy in 1996.

Along with Carney, two other African-Americans who ranked higher than she did were rejected for the October 1998 academy class, one of them ranked third. Carney ranked 123rd, records show.

Of the three lower-ranked African-Americans hired instead of Carney, one resigned and one was fired a few weeks after completing their academy training, records show. The third is still an officer.

Denver Post staff writer Jim Kirksey contributed to this report.