The federal Department of Justice is closing its investigation into the hiring practices of the Bowling Green Police Department.
Last summer the DOJ said it was looking into the low number of African-American police officers on the force.
Bowling Green Mayor Bruce Wilkerson says federal investigators have told the city they found nothing out of the ordinary.
“They went through the process and what we understand, there was a statistical anomaly regarding the number of minorities that have been employed over the last couple of reviews and they wanted to examine our practices to determine that we weren’t setting up any artificial barriers to the hiring of minority applicants”
Bowling Green conducted its own investigation into the police department’s hiring practices.
The city decided a nationally certified written test in use since the 1970’s wasn’t the best way to evaluate applicants. That test will no longer be used as the first step in the hiring process.
Wilkerson says the city has decided to no longer use the test, and reach out to applicants who didn’t pass it.
“We went back to people who had not passed the written test before and informed them that we would invite them to participate again this year”
Wilkerson said he agrees with police chief Doug Hawkins’ philosophy of hiring applicants based on character, and then training them for the skills they need to be successful officers.
