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With all due respect, I disagree with Garden City Commissioner Jim Wharton’s position regarding the Garden City Police Department’s ability to keep qualified personnel in his comments published Feb. 22 in The Garden City Telegram. My view is: recruit, hire and train the men and women who already live in Garden City. What is lacking is not qualified applicants but a good work environment. I have a unique perspective. For nearly three years, I have been the attorney for numerous former and current Garden City police officers who have sought me out regarding their treatment at the police department. Both the Banda and Stewart-Upchurch cases carry charges of gender discrimination, charging that women police officers, no matter their rank, were treated on a systematic, daily basis that was demeaning, degrading and exploitative simply because they are women. This sort of treatment demoralizes everyone. In order to recruit quality people, hire them and retain them, the Garden City Police Department will have to seek out people who represent the diversity of Garden City. I believe that there are qualified men and women from all backgrounds who live in Garden City. There is no need to recruit outside the city’s borders, much less across the ocean. What is needed is commitment to developing a police force of men and women who live in Garden City. The Banda and Wojdylak matters were settled, but hopefully those settlements did not stop the community’s discussion of what happens to people when they apply to the Garden City Police Department. Many women have not just left the police department, they have fled Garden City because their dream of serving and protecting the community they love was shattered. Several have gone on to other law enforcement workplaces because of their commitment to police work. Still others are afraid of blacklisting by the Garden City Police Department if they apply for work elsewhere. I am confident this is not the work environment Garden City’s citizens want for their police department. Garden City is a great town that deserves a great police force. Many people within the department, on the commission and around the town are working to make that goal a reality. The first step is always the hardest: admitting that a problem exists and then taking responsibility for fixing it.
810 Frontview, P.O.
Box 1147, Dodge City, Kansas 67801 |
