By adamg on Tue., 5/25/2021 - 9:56 am
WBZ reports on the internal-affairs investigation into 21 officers who took a sergeant's exam last year.
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WBZ reports on the internal-affairs investigation into 21 officers who took a sergeant's exam last year.
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Comments
With no true BPD or City
By Samual
Tue, 05/25/2021 - 3:10pm
With no true BPD or City leadership, I’m not surprised.
Last year?
By Parkwayne
Wed, 05/26/2021 - 9:24am
So the cops cheated on the exam last year because they knew Marty and Gross were leaving this year?
Or....?
Hold on,
By MikeBoston
Tue, 05/25/2021 - 4:30pm
Let me get my surprised face on. There, that’s better.
Hey, I’d cheat too for a crack at $300k a year.
Wow, what a surprise
By fungwah
Tue, 05/25/2021 - 5:07pm
Are you telling me that a bunch of police officers were willing to do something unethical and then cover for each other? You know, I bet the only answers here are to pay them more, criticize them less, and give them even less oversight.
You know they are ratting each other out here right?
By Pete Nice
Tue, 05/25/2021 - 5:51pm
100% of police misconduct (excluding excessive force or rudeness/standard police complaints) are a result of police officers turning each other in or dropping a dime. How do you think this investigation got started?
Every single overtime and detail scandal that has happened in the Boston or state police occur because other cops drop dimes. It still amazes me that this is not public knowledge yet...
21 cops, Pete
By fungwah
Wed, 05/26/2021 - 10:06am
That's 21 police officers who thought that they could go ahead and cheat on a promotional exam and there was nothing wrong with that (to say nothing of the fact that they clearly thought no one would turn them in). Excuse me if I'm a bit more worried about the hiring and training practices that led to nearly two dozen police officers thinking that they could lie and cheat rather than praising the cops who just did their actual job by turning them in.
Yea you were talking about "covering for each other"
By Pete Nice
Wed, 05/26/2021 - 11:48am
Just pointing out that probably isn't what happened here.
21 cops, Pete
By fungwah
Wed, 05/26/2021 - 11:52am
You don't think any of those 21 were "covering for each other"? They all just totally independently decided to do this on their own without any thought of whether the others would say something if they saw something?
Honestly I don't know much about this.
By Pete Nice
Wed, 05/26/2021 - 1:23pm
But every officer knows that the chance of being ratted out on a cheating issue is very high. This isn't covering up for someone, this is someone trying to take your job and money illegally so there is more of a chance of someone stepping up and saying something.
And I'm not sure 21 cops got together to cheat, in fact I highly doubted that happened. I'm guessing these cops brought their study material to the exam ( or phones) and then when they found out at some point that no one would be seeing them on the zoom call (which is puzzling) they went ahead and brought their cheating material.
I could be wrong. I don't doubt for a second that 21 cops did this though.
I think it is safe to say
By brianjdamico
Wed, 05/26/2021 - 1:27pm
I think it is safe to say that should all expect better of those who serve us, especially those charged with enforcing the laws of our society. But as someone who worked in higher ed over the past year or so, it's plainly clear that as soon as the opportunity afforded itself to many academic test takers to cheat, they did. It's a damn shame so many lack such basic integrity, but here we are.
To the rescue!
By Angry Dan
Tue, 05/25/2021 - 5:26pm
I have no doubt the BPD Internal Affairs is well on the way to foiling these ne'er-do-wells! Now they'll all have to wait until this blows over before they get promoted (with retroactive back pay at the new pay grade of course).
How hard can it be?
By lbb
Tue, 05/25/2021 - 5:40pm
I have never seen a police promotional exam, but how hard can it be? This is for an advancement in a job that you're supposedly already doing; you've had plenty of opportunity to learn on the job. You've got access to all the mentors and material you could want. So how hard can it be to ace this exam, and what does that say about anyone who feels the need to cheat?
You need to memorize....
By Pete Nice
Tue, 05/25/2021 - 5:54pm
5 textbooks, 250 pages of policies and 4 law books. That’s really it.
And yea, it’s basically rote memorization.
But this wasn’t that part of the test, this was the oral questions that is the harder part to cheat on if you wanted to anyway.
Let’s talk about this.
By Bob Leponge
Wed, 05/26/2021 - 8:43am
What theory of policing, municipal governance, or workforce development leads to the conclusion that rote memorization is an important job skill for law enforcement professionals?
Testing, in most professions, as for college admissions, is an embarrassing joke. Why do we use the tests we use? Because they’re easy to administer and they give a clear numerical answer. Similarly, the drunk of folklore looks for his dropped keys under the street lamp because the light there is good, making searching easy, even though he dropped the keys half a block away.
Hi Bob
By anon
Wed, 05/26/2021 - 9:41am
That was the old school way. It’s no longer the standard for promotional exams. A superior officer must know the criminal law inside and out. They are called upon daily to make judgment calls that impact the civil rights of citizens. There are a lot of criminal laws and procedures that have to be seared into the brain. Would you want an officer who was unsure of the law making a decision as to whether to arrest you?
Modern day promotional exams at BPD include a written exam as well as assessment centers which grade leadership and other qualities that directly correlate with the ability to manage other officers.
BPD has spent millions on its exam processes over the last several years to make them more equitable and effective at identifying leadership candidates.
That's a bit far afield of the matter at hand
By lbb
Wed, 05/26/2021 - 10:50am
That's an interesting discussion topic that is adjacent to the current subject, but is in fact completely different. The issue at hand is that a bunch of cops found themselves unwilling to stir their stumps to qualify using the well-established criteria in place. They did not act to change the criteria, only to evade them. So, your thoughts on the merits and weaknesses of testing are no doubt interesting, but irrelevant to the matter at hand.
If we get rid of literacy
By Notfromboston
Wed, 05/26/2021 - 10:28am
If we get rid of literacy exams for teachers, why not get rid of promotional exams for police?
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