The 57 Year Old Police Rookie

March 20, 2021

By NZB3

“On March 4th of this year newly elected Mayor Mary Sue Beal announced that she was changing the hiring practices of this city’s police force.”

“No longer would height, weight, sex, education, or physical strength be used to keep new recruits out of the Metropolitan Police Academy.”

“Hundreds of people who never dreamed of becoming policy officers signed up immediately.”

The above passage comes from the farcical comedy movie Police Academy (1984.) It is the central premise and initial exposition from the beginning of the film. It’s a joke so funny that it launched 6 sequels and 2 TV series (It also answered the riddle of The Stonecutters.) Being historically minded, I assume Mayor Mary Sue is based on a real person and a real policing policy from an earlier era of Victimhood Culture in the late 1970s.

It can’t happen here? Already has!

A 57 year old police rookie whose math and other academics just scraped by is now an officer. In the past she didn’t even have a shot because she’s too short. Training money well spent? Fighting crime with woke diversity. That’ll show those crooks. Political Policemen, roll out!

Lynda “Perry said the make-up of her class was diverse – the youngest person was 19 years old, 55 percent were female and there was a huge range of nationalities. ” – NZ’s oldest police graduate celebrates after 40 year wait, NZ Police Public Relations Branch via Radio New Zealand

Now she can retire in 5 years with a police pension I guess. Get a flashing light and siren for her mobility scooter.

Perry said she thought her previous experience as a real estate agent would help her…”They were in different situations, you know, whether they were dealing with grief or they didn’t want to sell their house – that could be mortgagee – so you know you have to be able to relate to people.

Sure, she might meet again some of the people whose homes and chattels she helped repossess as a realtor. “Remember me from that time you lost your house? Now I’m here to tow your car, take your licence, take your weed,…”

Police: We lowered the standards for intelligence and height. And, you’re now so old you qualify for an Affirmative Action recruitment hire for being a near-retirement age female.

Constable Rookie: “If you want it hard enough you just work hard, you really have to.”

There are a number of forces at work to make this farce. One is, as Police Academy remarks, to aggravate and undermine the New Zealand Police on the part of the changed Government. Like Police Minister Stuart Nash’s telephone hotline, measures must be taken to undermine and replace the police who are partisans of the previous Government. Another force at work is the encouragement of fools to apply to join the Police so they can be politely declined with a participation certificate in exchange for tens of thousands in application fee revenue.

However, the main force at play here in my view is Police Public Relations. We’ve already seen how the NZ Police have become political. We’ve got gay cars, Maori cars, rural ‘cars’, Muslim uniforms, Seik uniforms, tattooed bodies and, now, we’ve got pensioner policewomen.

“New Zealand official documents, uniforms, vehicles, seals, logos etc are required to be free of political symbols; We leave that to party politics and citizens in non-official acts.”

“Off-duty official persons can be self-expressed but cross a line in doing so in the capacity of representing their office. If we break that rule now then on what other occasions will we allow the uniform to be used as a billboard? And who decides which political message? The commander or individual officer? Next thing you know police cars will start looking like Nascars….” – Political Policemen, NZB3 (Mar 2019)

It’s a useful myth for keeping ‘order’ that the public believe their police know if you’ve been bad or good and have the ability to apply the right pressure on the right people. Actually, the police rely heavily on civilian good will and cooperation to provide them with information and assistance. That’s why it’s so dangerous for policemen to become politically or religiously partisan. They’re picking sides in a culture war. They are taking on the mantle of various special causes the same way politicians and their political parties do. That makes police sympathetic to some groups but automatically adversarial to others.

When the public service, which the police are, starts becoming the story they abandon the institution of having a uniform. A uniform code is a strength in the long run because it constrains our public buildings and works and staff to their service function for all New Zealanders equally. When there’s a Catholic Policeman or a Homosexuals Squad Car or Maori Prison or Muslim IRD Branch we’ve slipped the pretense of civilisation and gone back to tribalism. The police are supposed to be defending our pluralistic way of life, the one that allows citizens of different values/religions/genders/races/.. to live side by side in peace together. Instead, they’re taking an axe to it in the name of some temporary public relations advantage they might not be able to take back.

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Update Sep 2021: The same affirmative action ethic has struck New Zealand medicine according to the indication of this quote. The ‘Rookie Doctor of the Year’ is 45 years old; ”People say you have to be brainy and smart to be a doctor, but….”..Hunter said the support she had received had been amazing.” Oh dear. Ref. Mum of five, Dr Tawa Hunter, named New Zealand Junior Doctor of the Year, NZ Herald