As Jordan’s story finds its way back into the media,
some argue that the problem the United States has had in recent years with the increased militarization of civilian police forces is related to the fact that the only people eligible to become police officers are those who are of “just above average” intelligence — especially since law enforcement agencies tend to promote from within. This means that those who eventually become detectives and solve crimes are the same people who were initially allowed to become police officers at least partly because they did not score too high on an intelligence test.
Controversial filmmaker Michael Moore helped
expose what happened to Jordan on his show “The Awful Truth,” which ran from 1999 to 2000.
On the program, Moore sent orrespondent Jay Martel to New London to speak with Richard Brown, New London’s city manager who rejected Jordan’s application. Martel asked Brown why he wouldn’t allow Jordan to work as a police officer even though Jordan scored well on the test. Brown responded, saying that according to the test, people within certain score ranges were likely to be happy and stay on the job, and he believed Jordan would grow bored and want to leave.
Martel asked Brown if he ever thought the public would want law enforcement to be intelligent, which is when Brown asked Martel to leave his office. When Martel refused and continued asking Brown questions, Brown left his office and threatened to call security.
During the episode, Martel also went around the city asking police officers questions from the IQ test to gauge the intelligence of law enforcement.
When he asked police officers the question about which word is not like the others, one officer responded, “I can’t say that I know, sir.” Police officers were also unable to answer questions such as the distance to the city of Hartford, Connecticut, and how long it would take to travel 150 miles to Hartford in a car traveling 55 miles per hour.
In fact, the only people able to correctly answer Martel’s questions were security guards. One security guard even corrected Martel by informing the correspondent that Hartford was not 150 miles away, it was only 30 miles away.
Martel also spoke to some known criminals in the town, who said they are comforted knowing that they are smarter than the cops because that gives them about a two-week head start in trying to get away with crimes.
When Martel asked an officer about concerns that criminals were testing higher on intelligence tests than officers, one officer responded that it wasn’t a concern for him because it was his “job to enforce crime.”
