Last month, San Francisco’s police union released a short ad on television and YouTube touting the department’s diversity.
The advertisement presents four officers of color at work — walking past cable cars, directing traffic — who then assure viewers they work for the “most diverse police department in the world.”
Yet statistics, a recent analysis of the nation’s largest police departments, and local groups paying attention to the matter do call the “most diverse” claim into question.
The San Francisco Police Officers Association public-service announcement, titled, “This is what the SFPD and the SFPOA is all about” went live at a curious time: days after a series of racist and homophobic text messages, sent by a group of San Francisco police officers, was revealed as part of the federal corruption trial of former Sgt. Ian Furminger.
The outcry that followed was swift and severe.
“I think at this point our department should say we are still in the process of diversifying our agency,” said Sgt. Yulanda Williams, president of Officers for Justice.
Not only have the numbers of minorities dropped in the force in recent years, said Williams, but conversely ethnic minorities make up a higher percentage of inmates in proportion to the number of residents who make up The City’s population.
via SFPD union ad’s ‘most diverse department’ claim questioned – San Francisco Examiner.
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