What's being murdered here is the Fire Department of New York City (FDNY). A crazy judge has imposed race quotas on the Department. The Department has complied, and so is now taking in its first draft of recruits since 2008.
The Fire Department’s new class of recruits — all current city EMTs or paramedics who want to become firefighters — are flaming out fast, failing the Fire Academy in record numbers, according to FDNY sources. [Fatter FDNY recruits failing, By Brad Hamilton, NY Post, March 3, 2013]
Wait a minute: Why are they all medics?
FDNY Commissioner Salvatore Cassano excluded applicants from the general population for this Academy class, limiting the pool to medics, whose ranks include a higher percentage of minorities than is found in firehouses.
Oh, I see. But medics have to be reasonably fit, don't they?
During the first week of the academy, 166 of the [318] probies flunked the physical-fitness test — which requires four pull-ups, 30 push-ups in one minute, 30 sit-ups in one minute and a 1.5-mile run in 12 minutes.
I guess not, then. But what was the selection process here?
About 870 medics took the written test and were ranked by score. But 300 were dropped after failing a cardiovascular stress test on a stair-climbing machine, sources said.
More flunked out when they failed to complete an obstacle course in time . . . So instead of plucking the cream of the EMT crop, the department “had to keep going farther down the list,” a source said.
“On the open exam for the general public, only candidates who score a 97 are likely to be called,” said the source. “But because so many of this class flunked their StairMaster, [scores] went as low as 72.”
Like U.S. military brass breezily implementing women in combat, though, the FDNY suits don't see too much of a problem.
FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon acknowledged the losses. “We’ve got people dropping out — every day it changes, almost. I don’t have exact numbers.”
Meanwhile, down in the ranks,
Veteran firefighters are fuming over the quality of the new recruits.
Quality, shmality: They're diverse—that's the main thing!
