“You’ve come a long way baby” since 1976

Forty-four years ago we celebrated the bicentennial.  It was two hundred years since the birth of our country.  Two hundred years since the Continental Congress declared that the thirteen colonies were united, free, and independent states.  It was a really big deal everywhere throughout the United States!

This year 1976 was also a really big deal in my life and was a year that sent me on a trajectory that was formative in who I am and resulted in the life that Dan and I have today.  It was a turning point in my life.

In late March of 1976 I graduated from the Seattle Police Academy.  I was one of five females that were hired--not for the Women’s Unit, not as Detectives, but to be Patrol Officers.  In other words, we were to be “street cops.”  We were the first women in Seattle (perhaps in the state) to put on a man’s police uniform, bullet proof vest, gun belt, given a police car, and assigned to a district to patrol.

I was the only female assigned to work the day shift in Seattle.  I still had three months of training to complete, with three different Field Training Officers (FTO).  At the start of this training I was instructed to watch and learn and only participate if my FTO needed a backup.  By the end of my training, the roles were reversed and I was the lead officer for all our stops and calls.

A week after my field training started, Ronald Reagan came to town as a Presidential candidate and spoke at Sicks’ Stadium.  This is where the Seattle Rainiers played baseball, before they became the Seattle Pilots.  This is where Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin gave concerts, and where Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston won boxing matches.  And this was where I went with my family as a child to watch ballgames and eat peanuts and cracker jacks! 

But on April 10, 1976 I was in the left field of Sicks’ Stadium (along with the Secret Service) guarding Ronald Reagan, while he was standing on the pitcher’s mound giving his campaign speech.  Five years later Ronald Reagan was our President.  I remember him and that day in Sicks’ Stadium, but I wonder if he would have remembered me out in left field.  Sadly, this Seattle icon, Sicks’ Stadium, has long since been torn down.

Spring of 1976, forty-four years ago, I was assigned to work in the highest crime districts from the start of my training.  The “brass” wanted to see if “a female could do the job.”  There were two different reactions by the residents in my district that were surprising, but really quite predictable.  The first was that, when I got out of the police car, people who were angry and yelling stopped dead in their tracks, and exclaimed, “It’s a police girl!”  After that, they often forgot what they were angry about and started asking me questions and talking to me. The male police officers just sat back amazed.  A situation that could have ended in an arrest was diffused and now resembled what would now be called a community block party.

The other reaction to a female police officer that was surprising was when I told an African American man or teen to do something, including, “You are under arrest, put your hands behind your back,” the huge majority obediently said, “Yes ma’am.”  Most of these males had been raised by their mothers and they loved and respected their Mothers.  I treated them with the same respect they gave to me.

I had a foot beat on Skid Row for a short time. Then I was assigned a patrol district on Capital Hill, where the housing projects were located, where heroin was sold openly on the streets, and where the large majority of the residents in my community were minorities.  In fact, if my partner or I saw a white person in the community that we patrolled, we would stop them to see who they were and what they were doing.  Inevitably, they had an outstanding warrant or were either selling or buying heroin.

And if it was a “well to do” white man, he was usually looking for a prostitute, many of whom were young girls.  I did sting operations in my district, dressed as a prostitute, walked the streets, and arrested these “Johns” who were preying on the young girls who were barely out of puberty.

I cleaned up the drugs in my district with my partner, Fred Ibuki, who came on the department shortly after I did.  We were both brand new rookies, fresh out of training.  We were aggressive, out of our cars, patrolling our district on foot, making arrests, but also getting to know the law abiding families who wanted us to make their community a safe place to live, a safe place to raise their children.  We gave people hope and made a difference in a very poor, rundown neighborhood and we are proud of the job we did.

Another thing that happened that summer of 1976 on the 4th of July, the bicentennial celebration of our county's birth, is that I was assigned to work the night of the 4th with another female officer!  The “brass” now wanted “to see if two females working as partners in a police car could do the job.”  We were just a few days out of our Field Training Program and after ten months of the academy and on the job training we were certified Seattle Police Officers.  Our training was good and we were confident and good officers.

All I distinctly remember about that day is was watching the beginning of the elaborate fireworks display in the sky over Seattle’s Elliot Bay from our patrol car under I-5.  And then the calls started coming in fast and furious.  With lights and sirens blaring the first two female Seattle Police officer team dashed off to answer calls. Of course we could do the job, but it was a different world in 1976 and it was a big deal at that time.

You’ve come a long way baby.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick%27s_Stadium

From the archives of The Seattle Times:
April 10, 1976
Mr. Reagan, in his presidential campaign, sounded his two favorite themes: the Soviet menace and government spending. He warned that "the Soviets' annual investment in strategic and conventional weapons runs some 50 percent ahead of ours. It is buying them superiority." And to a crowd of cheering supporters at Seattle's old Sicks' Stadium, Mr. Reagan said "the cost of government is going up faster than any other product we buy."

44 years later:  My Seattle Police Hat, badge, and an original 1976 Seattle Police Department patch that Dan found for me on eBay.

Our motto:  Pride, Service and Dedication