Experts question police recruit screening exams
Minneapolis: As he watched the video of George Floyd’s dying moments, martial arts instructor Andre Balian recognised the white police officer kneeling on the black man’s neck for nearly nine minutes.
“There’s no perceivable way he could not know what kind of damage he was either doing or capable of doing in that situation,” Balian said of Derek Chauvin, the now ex-officer who has been charged with killing Floyd in Minneapolis.
“He knew what he was doing and that it was wrong, and they better not let him off the hook for it,” said
Balian, who still teaches at the Southern Praying Mantis Kung Fu Association where he encountered Chauvin two decades ago.
Chauvin, who spent 19 years on the Minneapolis force before being sacked over Floyd’s killing, racked up 17 complaints during his career, including one when he yanked a woman from her car for a minor speeding offence.
While Balian was shocked to watch the video of Floyd’s death, he recalled his unease about Chauvin as a student, describing him as a “jerk” who would stand with arms folded and glare at those around him.
James Butcher, an expert in psychological screening exams for aspiring police officers, said anyone capable of such violence should never have been recruited in the first place.
“It’s very difficult to believe that someone who was supposed to be screened for mental health issues or mental health problems would engage in extensive physical abuse against another person,” he said.
An emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota, Butcher’s work for 40 years has focused on a standardised psychological test that assesses personality traits and mental problems.
Called the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), it is used internationally to weed out unfit police applicants, although not all departments use it.
“If he was given the MMPI, in all likelihood he would have shown up as having personality problems, personality disorders, antisocial features and so forth,” Butcher said.
“It’s very apparent that there was some problem with detecting the personality disorders that were showing up in his behaviour.” Deniz Ones, a specialist in industrial psychology at the University of Minnesota, said better pre-employment screening of police applicants “is perhaps the single most important change that needs to happen”.
Screening exams flag traits such as stress intolerance and callousness to root out prejudiced applicants, but many police departments don’t have access to psychologists who can evaluate results.
“If they’re not properly interpreting the results, the result could be negligent hiring and more of this violence by police,” Ones said.