I was one of the first six women to attend the Police Academy in my state many years ago and it was quite an experience.  I was in my early twenties and breathless with excitement.

I had already worked for the Sheriff’s Office for a couple of years, starting at age 20, too young to be sworn in even.  The old sheriff, however, decided to take a chance on me and hired me.  He was a great guy, although I saw very little of him.  Instead I worked for the Chief Criminal Deputy.  The office was split up in four parts.  One side held the criminal department where crimes were pursued and miscreants were arrested.  Next door was the Civil Department from where legal papers were served.  Upstairs was the Tax Department from which taxes were collected.  And on the roof was the jail.  All located in the downtown Court House.

From the time I’d started watching television I had loved “cops and robbers” shows, be they in the city or the Wild West, so it was amazing that fresh out of business college I ended up working for the “cops.”  It was, however, nothing near as exciting as the television shows.

After my training on day shift I was moved to graveyard shift.  The dullest shift there.  Besides dispatching cars to scenes of complaint or accident I would spend the evening transcribing police reports and making sure they were ready to be given to the District Attorney’s office the following day.  Mostly I typed as my Sergeant dispatched, unless he made his rounds through the Court House to make sure things were secure.

One night as I was sitting quietly typing the State Police came in bringing a woman prisoner.  I looked up and saw the prisoner and panic hit me.  I knew I was going to have to search and help book the woman and she was much larger than I and was barely able to stand up so drunk was she.  I shot a panicked look at my Sergeant who just smiled, grabbed the keys and told me to follow.

He assiduously locked up the office and then we entered the lift to take us to the jail.  I felt cold chills racing down my back and thought I would be sick.  We arrived a moment later.  “Okay,” my Sergeant told me, “take her in that cell and search her.”

I stiffened my spine and requested the woman to precede me into the cell, which she did.  “I’m going to have to search you,” I told her and she just looked blearily back at me.  So I went through the routine, checking her clothing, running my fingers carefully through her hair in case there were razor blades planted in it, patting her down, feeling slightly faint the whole time.  It turned out she didn’t have any contraband on her – not that I had expected anything, but she did have a large safety pin holding the front of her dress together.  I had to remove it.  So I asked her if she would let me take her safety pin as the rules wouldn’t allow her to keep it.  She decided that was not going to happen and she dared me to take it.  No fool, I, instead I called my Sergeant.  She decided she didn’t want a man to take the pin and so she gave it to me.  I sighed a huge sigh of relief as we exited the cell and began to book her.  Finally we were done and we all went downstairs, I to wash my hands, the other two to chat and drink coffee.

Two years later the former Chief Criminal Deputy had been elected Sheriff and he told me I would be attending the Police Academy the following week.  That I would stay up there the week and would be coming back on the weekends and it would take six weeks.    By then I had been transferred to Swing Shift which had the most “traffic” and I had been constantly busy booking, searching, and transporting prisoners .  This was going to be an exciting change.

Because we were the first women to attend the Academy they had no place for us to stay and thus we had to bunk with the nuns down the road.  This was pleasant as it was summer and the nuns had accommodations they rented out to people who came to meditate and pray.  The rooms were a lot nicer than the bunks at the base, and there was a large swimming pool.  However, all meals were to be taken at camp.  So each morning the six of us would pile in a couple of cars and head to the base.  We had been issued blue overalls and blue baseball caps to wear.  We met at Headquarters and from there we were marched to breakfast.  I learned to march those six weeks and sing army songs while doing it, which were slightly modified.  I learned to “sound off” and be part of the team.

The courses consisted of learning both criminal and motor vehicle law.  We learned about investigations and Miranda warnings.  We learned that if we didn’t pass the Board of Police Standards and Training Academy we would not be able to become police officers and we would not be certified by the State.  A certain conduct was required and one fellow student, with a penchant for practical jokes, was dismissed from the class while I was there.  He had been hired as the Chief of Police of a small town in my state and I wondered if he would be able to do his job without Board Certification.  It put the fear of God into the rest of us, and we worked diligently on our notebooks, taking concise, clear notes, and paying attention.

Then the experts from the crime lab came and we watched a dissection of a human body and were taught what to look for in a homicide.  But since this was in the early 1970s it was a far cry from CSI.  Still it was fascinating.  We also had to learn how to deliver a baby, to take finger prints, dust for prints, measure tire tracks, etc. etc.

The following week the FBI descended on us and we had to learn self-defense.  We were taught how to disarm a suspect in different ways and were told to never, ever surrender our weapons, even if our partner’s life was at stake.  Because the moment we did, we would both be dead.  It was an unnerving week.

After that it was the firing range.  We all had to qualify with our weapons to graduate.  This was the last part of the course.  We practiced a few days and then the FBI ran the course with us.  I was shooting a .357 Magnum with a shooting trigger, one that needed very little pressure to fire, and I was extremely nervous.  There were several positions we had to qualify in, starting from the back of the course we had to quickly move up to the next obstacle (policing our brass as we went) to fire another round of shots.  We ended up close to the target and had to fire from the hip.  It was nerve wracking and I was weak with relief when it was finally over.  The Special Agent got my target and we went over it; luckily I had qualified although there was room for lots of improvement as my pattern wasn’t close enough.  Still I felt immensely fortunate as two of the women I attended the Academy with were unable to qualify and would have to return the next day to try again.  It was an exciting time but I was glad to go home again.

While I continued to book, transport, dispatch, and type instead of being sent on patrol, I was relieved.  The county was very big and very dark at night and I was really not interested in being on patrol.  Still, the Academy had certified me and I had gotten a raise in pay for the certification.  It was a great experience.  But one I left behind a few years later when I was offered another job with had a lot more financial incentives.

I had already begun reading MS magazine while working at the Sheriff’s Office and the at my next job I became a full-fledged feminist and activist.