Chattanooga Police Chief Fred Fletcher is aiming to launch a program to recruit more minority police officers.
He wants to raise money to pay people $500 incentives for recommending minority police cadets.
“People are motivated by financial incentive,” Fletcher said. “So I thought, ‘Why over-complicate it?’ Let’s just pay people who can help us meet our goal, which is to increase diversity.”
The Chattanooga Police Department has 457 sworn officers. Most of them (77.7 percent) are white and male (92.8 percent), according to the department’s latest demographics.
Blacks now represent 17.3 percent of sworn officers, Hispanics represent 3.5 percent, American Indians 1.1 percent and Asians 0.40 percent.