If you’ve seen our story archive, you know that we collect stories documenting the misconduct of police officers. While this story doesn’t really qualify as misconduct, it does serve to illustrate another potential reason why cops suck.
It seems the New London, Connecticut, Police Department doesn’t like their officers to be too smart. They give all of their applicants a standardized IQ test, and if you score too high, like Robert Jordan, you are rejected. Now IQ tests are not a terribly accurate predictor of a given person’s mental faculties, but if they are going to go to the trouble of administering the test, you would think they would set a minimum score criteria, not a maximum score.
I can only speculate on the reasons behind this policy: smart people ask too many questions. If you want someone to blindly follow your orders, you are better off hiring less intelligent folk. And if you know that your department is, from time to time, engaged in activities that raise certain legal and/or ethical questions, you don’t want a precinct full of geniuses second-guessing your command. Perhaps my bias in this area is showing, but I really can’t think of any other explanation, can you?