Analysis paralysis is not an indication of smart.

Pointing out "the question is wrong/invalid/badly worded" isn't analysis paralysis

Could be, of course, that they want to test how you deal with that... But I have a feeling that's beyond the point here

Analysis paralysis is evidence of somebody either completely missing the point or people who wish to think they are smarter than they can actually perform (Dunning-Kruger). Either way it is a performance failure, and failing to perform against a baseline, even if flawed, is not an indication of smart.

Good thing it wasn't analysis paralysis. The conclusion of the analysis was "the question is badly worded" and from the way he worded his original reply it seems like he understood what they were aiming for

That is an (small) indication of smart

Sounds to me like just an oversight. If what experience I have with public institutions is worth anything, it just didn't occur to the people who designed the question that the wording was shit and that to arrive at the intended answer you have to be loose with the meaning of words. That does not reflect well on American po-pos

why do you keep posting this over and over again in this thread? The department applied this rule to attempt to reduce turnover, not because they literally want dumb cops.

I never said they want dumb cops, just that the person posting is not who they want because they're too smart. The way they limit turnover is by selecting for normal IQs so they don't get bored and leave.

Seems like the smart thing to do would be to give the "too smart" people training to tackle more interesting and important problems - like white collar crime, tax loopholes, internal corruption, etc.

I'll give you three guesses why that's never even floated as an option...

To be fair, the white collar crime is mostly tackled by other organizations who have investigators but aren't typical police. Like the FBI (accountants comprise a large percentage of agents), SEC, IRS, etc.