With Seattle Police Department recruitment flagging despite throwing most of the city budget at them, the SPD announced plans to boost enrollment by lowering the testing standards to just coloring within the thin blue line on an American flag.
“Only thing preventing us from getting more cops on the street are these pesky aptitude tests, so we decided to launch our new recruiting program we’re calling our ‘Gold Star Pipeline’— any prospective officer that gets a gold star on their coloring assignment will get their badge and gun,” said SPD Academy Instructor Jeremy Clarke, handing out a printout of the American flag. “And if you think this isn’t challenging enough to weed out individuals who aren’t up to enforcing the law, you haven’t seen the amount of crayons I’ve had to pull out of noses. Hey, you, quit eating glue! Where did you even get that?”
But despite the scheme to fast track more officers, the program was already receiving some pushback from potential recruits.
“Teacher? I broke my blue crayon, when do I get my gun so I can shoot it?” said SPD candidate Chad Rogers, instructing his crayon to stop resisting. “Who came up with this stupid test anyways? I’m becoming a police officer to make the rules, not follow them. Why don’t we just turn off our body cams and you can write in your little report that it was the cleanest coloring job you’ve ever seen and get out of here?”
At press time, Rogers’ innovative testing techniques had wowed SPD brass, who began to discuss plans to fast track him to be next in line for Interim-Interim-Interim police chief.
