New York City’s Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton said that there would be more black cops on the police force if fewer blacks were criminals.

“We have a significant population gap among African-American males because so many of them have spent time in jail and, as such, we can’t hire them,” Bratton told the UK’s Guardian newspaper in a story published Tuesday.

But that jail time, Bratton implied, was the result of stop and frisk policies of the NYPD and Bratton blamed those policies on his predecessor, Ray Kelly. Most of those stops were in minority communities and resulted in blacks and minorities getting arrested. The result is a smaller pool of minority applicants for the police force because potential applicants in minority communities have records.

“We’re certain the disfavor and the antagonism in the black community toward the police is a principal factor in why so few black men want to become police officers,” the commissioner added.

Bratton later qualified his remarks in The Guardian, saying the way the paper reported his comments was a “misrepresentation” and provided more context for his statements.

“It is a fact that a higher percentage of black males are precluded from becoming a police officer because of criminal history than white candidates or other minority candidates,” he said. “It’s as much as the same that it is a fact that in this city there is a higher percentage of black males that are murdered and a higher percentage of them doing the murdering. These are facts, and I always deal with facts.”

The commissioner has cut back on the stop and frisk policies, but remains a proponent of broken windows policing. “Convicted felons, those found guilty of domestic violence, and candidates who have been dishonorably discharged from the armed forces are automatically disqualified from the NYPD under department policy.”

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/nypd-commish-wed-have-more-black-cops-if-fewer-blacks-were-criminals