Police recruit trip a success

 

by Tom Alex, Gazette Staff Writer, 12-30-1977

 

Cedar Rapids Police Lt. Gerald R. Hinzman today said a recruiting trip to Chicago, aimed at reaching members of minority races, produced eight potential applicants.

 

“When I left Chicago yesterday there were eight people interested in applying,” he said. “Six of them were minorities and one was a female.”

 

“I think everyone was satisfied,” he said.

 

The meeting at the Urban League, 45th Street and Michigan Avenue on the South Side of Chicago, had been advertised in minority newspapers and on minority radio stations, he said.

 

Word also went out to several colleges with criminology departments or criminology and police science classes.

 

Authorities say they hope word of mouth will continue to spread the word around Chicago that Cedar Rapids is not only an equal opportunity employer, but that it actively is seeking minority members on its police department.

 

The deadline for returning applications is Dec. 22. So far, 54 completed forms have been returned. The application can be obtained at the personnel office and the civil service office at City Hall as well as at the police department. At the police department alone, 325 application forms have been taken out.

 

There are three vacancies on the force now, and three other officers will become eligible for retirement by the time the officers now being recruited complete their training and are ready to be sworn, which will probably be somewhere near Sept. 1, 1978.

 

That isn’t necessarily an accurate picture of how close the department will be to its authorized strength of 154, however, since some officers will probably quit before then, and some eligible for retirement — Chief Gareth Clift, 54, for example — may not retire.

 

Clift is also expected to officially ask the City Council at budget hearings to increase the police department’s authorized strength.

 

For Luther Trent, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, and one of the participants on the recruiting trip, it wasn’t so much what happened in Chicago — it was the fact that it happened at all that pleased him.

 

“We were very satisfied,” he said.

 

Originally contacted, Trent refused to say how many persons were interviewed in Chicago. He said a press release on that matter would not be forthcoming until this afternoon.

 

“That the city is doing more extensive recruiting is what I want to emphasize. Not how many we recruited.

 

It’s more important to stress the city is making a definite effort (to recruit minorities),” he said.

 

Cedar Rapids representatives in south Chicago Tuesday were Kevin Weiss, city equal opportunity officer; Juan Cortez, president of the local A. Phillip Randolph Institute; Trent and Hinzman.

 

A press conference was set for this afternoon to discuss the results of the Chicago recruiting drive.