Biff_Poindexter
Diamond Member
Fort Lauderdale ex-police chief hits back after being fired over diversity promotions
Larry Scirotto says he promoted ‘minority candidates because they were exceptional – not because they were minority’
www.theguardian.com
"Fort Lauderdale’s now-former police chief has hit back at officials in the Florida city who fired him after just six months on the job, accusing him of focusing too heavily on a diversity policy in hiring and promotion. Larry Scirotto, 48, the son of a white mother and Black father and the department’s first openly gay chief, was fired last Thursday after a city report related examples such as how he had once pointed to a display of photos of the department’s command staff in a conference room and said: “That wall is too white” and “I’m gonna change that.”
Scirotto spent more than two decades as a police officer in Pittsburgh, and was initially welcomed in the Florida post as an outsider untouched by cronyism. Soon after being hired, Scirotto promoted 15 officers – nine were white men, six were minorities through ethnicity or gender. Four who were not selected for promotion – three men and one woman – filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “There would have been 12 white men, one white woman and two minorities if I had promoted as the complainants say I should have,” Scirotto told the paper. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. What would the optics have been on that?” Fort Lauderdale officials have indicated the city could rescind promotions made on Scirotto’s watch.
Again, we have a police corruption problem in this country. This is another example of how racism still runs rampant thru-out our law enforcement agencies across the country. This guy is just another piece of proof of that fact. If this guy would have been hired and talked about how there were too many darkies getting promoted and he was going to change that, it would obviously be seen as racist...so it is equally racist to say there are too many whites being promoted.
It doesn't matter that he was brought in precisely to improve diversity within the department -- the hire was supposed to be more for the purpose of appearances, not to actually promote diversity...Hopefully these darkies and whores who were promoted will have those promotions revoked so those who actually deserve them, receive them.
