Actually, I have to admit that as an almost weekly business traveller I have seen more black officers the any other at LAX. Not surprised that we have a reverse discrimination suit on it.

I also have worked security for a city agency. This seems legit to me, or at least plausible, there were very few whites in supervisory positions where i worked, and the the only people that got promoted were friends of the brass. BUT, it was cool cause everybody got along mostly and the majority were competent, so vey few people had complaints.

this is to Ginny, the reason you see more black officers at LAX is because before they changes the job title to airport police officer, it was called special officer. A lot of white officers did not know what that meant; so they did not want to be a special officer. At this time the top brass was white.

This goes way back when Johnny Cochran was airport commissioner. Back in 1980 (when I actually got hired) the term special officer was used however they had peace officer status and did attend the Rio Honda Sheriff academy for police status. Around the late 1988 when Bratton and others were assigned to beef up the department they began to attend LAPD’s academy. I’m white and when I started almost all my supervisors were black. You also have to understand that the area around the airport is also black so you get black applicants.

What is true is many of these black officers had been with the department for many years, some barely could write or read. Their lack of skill or education was obvious but they often were still promoted over whites due to seniority. Even when George Howison was chief this was done and he was white.

Then there was the huge break up where the new chief was fired and investigater for taking bribes (which was true we all knew this was going on). He used to work for operations (was white) So there were very few black chiefs but to keep the troops happy (the blacks) they often promoted them with the fear that they would cause problems.

I also travel the airport often, what Markus is saying is NOT true, this was the case 20 years ago but not today. Almost all the officers you see now were not there when the “special officer” situation was active. Think about it, if you were hired in 1980 how many years have passed? 1980 they had Peace officer status and were not Special officers (more like dog catchers as we used to joke about it). 1990′s they were all trained at LAPD academy.