Happy Birthday USA!!!
Fifty 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 my Danny 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.
A few weeks later, I again was pulled away from my Field Training to help on surveillance for a major drug bust. I was the only young female officer working the day shift, the drug dealer didn’t know me, and I didn’t look like a police officer without my uniform.
So I was asked to dress like a prostitute and a black sergeant dressed like my pimp. Disguised as a pimp with his prostitute hanging on his arm, we hung out in the courtyard of a scuzzy apartment building, and watched as the police informant entered an apartment to buy drugs. From previous buys, we knew that the drugs were not being held in this apartment. We couldn’t get a search warrant since we didn’t know where the drugs were being kept. So the sergeant and my job was to unobtrusively, watch where the drug dealer went to get the drugs for the informant. Sure enough, the dealer left his apartment and went into another apartment two doors down. Now we had the location of the drugs!
But the drug bust was much bigger than arresting one drug dealer. We wanted the suppliers AND all the drug dealers in the Seattle area that were receiving the these drugs. Drug and Alcohol Enforcement (DEA) agents were called in. The next step was to set up surveillance at the Seattle Tacoma Airport.
Once again I, along with a team of plainclothes Seattle Police officers and DEA agents, were waiting surreptitiously at the gate at SeaTac where our informant had said that the heroin was coming in from South America. Sure enough, the suspected drug supplier came off the airplane. We followed him to baggage claim and to the four places in the Seattle Metropolitan area where he distributed the heroin.
The judge, who had been previously briefed and consulted, was called and search warrants for all four locations were immediately issued. Now, I was less than a month out of the Police Academy and at the start of my three month Field Training program.
But since I had helped to discover the apartment where the drugs were being held at one of these locations, the veteran police officers said that it was only fair that I join them in serving the search warrant. Their instructions were very clear, “There will be a female in the apartment. Just watch the female and stay out of our way!”
So that is what I did. I followed the search warrant team as they bust through the door, yelling,”Police, we have a search warrant!”
And sure enough, there was the female. But she was running out of the room. Luckily, everyone else was disarming the men in the apartment and not in my way, so I could sprint after the female—through the living room, down the hall, and into the bathroom. I tackled her just as she threw the bag heroin into the toilet and was attempting to flush it down the drain.
Well, I did my job and “watched the female.” And the female was the one holding the drugs!
Spring of 1976, fifty years ago, after I finished my Field Training, 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. The old time officer who had walked the beat taught me how to stop and question all the regulars and alcoholics and addicts who lived on the streets. This officer had a special way about him….he really cared about these down-and-out men and women. Often these homeless street people would ask us to take them to a shelter or help them find a job. We would help them when they asked, and inevitably, a few weeks later we’d see them back sleeping on the streets with their ragtag possessions next to them.
When the street people asked for money for “food,” we never gave them any cash. We knew they would use the money to buy alcohol or drugs. Instead we would take them to a restaurant, and buy them a sandwich.
In a way, we became friends with the regular street men and women, heard their stories of past successes, family, their dreams, and their failures. If anything happened on the streets, we could go to these people, and they would tell us who to look for. The street people often helped us to catch the “bad guys,” and consequently, we could keep our foot beat a safer place for them.
As a side note: When I worked the foot beat on First Avenue and the Seattle Public Market, I stood guard as President Gerald Ford visited the Public Market, and his motorcade drove down the streets of my district in the spring of 1976.
Next I was assigned to a patrol district on south Capitol Hill, where the housing projects were located, and heroin was sold openly on the streets. Two of the three major heroin areas in Seattle were in my district: 13th and Yesler and 12th and Jackson. My partner and I made felony arrests almost on a daily basis for the possession and/or sell of heroin.
The large majority of the residents in my district 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 got tired of the Vice Unit arresting the prostitutes in my district, but not focusing on the men who hired these desperate girls. So I went to my sergeant with a few other officers who worked in my sector, and asked if we could do a sting operations.
Our sergeant thought it was a great idea, idea so I dressed as a prostitute, walked the streets, and arrested these “Johns” who were preying on the young girls who were barely out of puberty. The other officers hid and were my backup. Then they transported the “Johns” to jail. An arrest for “ offer and agree” with another person was a mandatory day in jail, so the offender could be tested for venereal diseases.
I would be back “walking the streets” within ten minutes after making an arrest. There were times that I would arrest over twelve “Johns” in one day. These men would invariably tell me that I couldn’t arrest them as they had wives or were in charge of big companies. In other words, they thought that they could pay these poor young or drug addicted girls $20 for their bodies, but that they were too important to suffer any consequences for their behavior.
I particularly remember one 14-year-old beautiful young girl with a smattering of freckles across her nose. I was never able to arrest her for prostitution, so I could get her off the streets…and maybe get her some help.
And then one day, she was gone. I worried about her, and hoped that she wasn’t found dead in a ditch or a city park.
Then a few month later, I saw this fresh faced girl shopping in Sears with her mother and two younger sisters. I pretended not to recognize her, but she found me a few isles away from her mother. She told me that she was back home, in school, and happy. She thanked me for all I did for her when she was on the streets….and also for not reminding her mother of this awful time in their lives.
Me, as a “prostitute” during the sting operation to arrest the “Johns.”
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. Mothers often came up to me and thanked me for actively patrolling their neighborhoods, arresting the local criminals, getting out of my police car, walking the streets, talking to them, and making it safer for their children to walk to school and play outside.
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….an “injury accident” a few blocks from us, “with bodies all over the street.”
With lights and sirens blaring the first two female Seattle Police officer team dashed off to answer call. 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.
Addendum
You’ve come a long way baby.
Addendum
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."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sick%27s_StadiumApril 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."
Sick’s Stadium 1967 and 1965:
Me 50 years later:
My Seattle Police hat, badge, and an original 1976 Seattle Police Department patch that Danny found for me on eBay.
Our motto: Pride, Service and Dedication
Our motto: Pride, Service and Dedication
