Baltimore County investigation: Investigation highlights Balto. Co. minority hiring struggle - baltimoresun.com: When Baltimore County Police Capt. Andre Davis took command, late in 2010, of recruiting and hiring, he could see that efforts to bring in African-Americans had slipped. Background checks were not being completed on many applicants, and no effort was being made to see that black candidates showed up for physical and written exams.
He said he reformed those practices but acknowledges that it will take much more over many years to reverse a decades-long deficiency in minority hiring. In a county that is 26 percent African-American, the department is 11 percent black, a figure that has changed very little in years.
Davis, who now commands the Woodlawn precinct and is among the department's three highest-ranking African-Americans, praises the county's recent efforts but adds, "we've made no progress, that has already been made clear."
Now the U.S. Department of Justice wants answers. The agency has opened an investigation into possible violations of the Civil Rights Act in hiring African-Americans for entry-level uniformed positions in the Police and Fire departments.
