New Equality on the Beat : After Years of Struggle, Women Police Officers Begin to Feel Respect

It was a small incident, but Glendale police officer Sandy Conrad still remembers it.

An elderly woman had complained of a prowler--but her alarm only increased when she discovered that a female police officer had been dispatched to investigate.

“She was very upset because she was concerned for my safety,” said Conrad, an eight-year veteran of the department. “She was more concerned for my safety than for hers. When my male partner got there, I spent quite a while explaining to her that I could perform the same function he could.”

Times have changed for Conrad and the increasing number of women police officers in the Glendale area.

Some Bias Remains

To be sure, not all discrimination has disappeared since the early 1970s when women--decked out in skirts, high heels and purses instead of holsters--began patrolling the streets of Glendale, La Crescenta, La Canada Flintridge and Northeast Los Angeles.

“We still get all kinds of reactions,” said Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Deputy Janet Smith. “Some will even pull up alongside you and yell, ‘Hey, there’s a broad in the car!’ ”

But overall, female officers interviewed by The Times agree that acceptance of women officers has increased, both inside and outside their stations. Even in Glendale, a department wracked recently by lawsuits alleging discrimination against minorities--including a federal case the department lost last fall and is now appealing--the women say they are treated fairly by the department and their colleagues.

In the early 1980s, two male officers in Glendale, including a lieutenant, reportedly resigned under pressure for alleged sexual harassment of women on the force, said Glendale Chief of Police Daniel J. Thompson. Since then, he said, the climate for women has improved.

Agencies Were Dubious

“I think all law-nforcement agencies were somewhat dubious about the full role of women in law enforcement, but the women have proven themselves time and time again,” Thompson said.

Until the 1970s, women police officers were a small minority on most forces. They performed mainly clerical work, operated switchboards, staffed women’s wards of the jails and worked on juvenile and sex-crime cases. But the feminist movement changed that.

Women rookies now undergo the same training and testing as the men. And, once on the job, they pull the same shifts and duties as their male colleagues--from patrolling the streets day and night to flying in police helicopters and staffing specialized squads.

Women are especially valued on hostage negotiation teams, said Glendale Police Lt. Jack Bilheimer. Their voices can have a soothing effect on a kidnaper during delicate telephone negotiations, he said. Conrad is now the only woman on the five-member squad. The department may add add a second, said Bilheimer.

“Many men prefer to speak with a female than with a male. I feel it’s very important to have women on the team,” he said.

Today in Glendale, 13 of the department’s 181 sworn police personnel, or 7.2%, are women. Twelve are officers and one is a detective. Only four sworn policewomen were members of Glendale’s police force in 1971.

Nine of the 86 officers assigned to the sheriff’s Crescenta Valley substation are women--including seven deputies, a sergeant and a lieutenant. (Countywide, women make up about 11% of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.)

More Women in LAPD

Northeast Los Angeles is served by the Los Angeles Police Department, in which women make up 7.9% of the department’s 8,089 sworn personnel. Those statistics as well are far higher than a decade ago, officials said.

In the Glendale department, equality was a hard-fought battle waged by a few pioneers. Among them were Detective Ruth Feldman, now the highest-ranking woman on the force, and Lorraine Curry, now retired.

From the time Curry joined the department in 1954 to the mid-1970s, there was a separate classification for policemen and policewomen.

“They always called us a necessary evil. We were never greatly looked up to,” she said with a hearty laugh.

Curry and the other policewomen on staff earned about $30 a month less than the men and were little more than secretaries, she said.

“We all did paper work for the detectives. Processed juvenile tickets and counseled anyone under 12 years of age. . . . We weren’t doing an awful lot of police work,” she said.

In 1971, the four women decided to break the barrier that kept them from attaining higher ranks. Together, they applied for the detective examination, but were immediately turned down. They were told that the job was open only to men. The women appealed the ruling before Glendale’s Civil Service Commission and won.

Later that year, Feldman, a divorced mother of two, was promoted to detective.

Meanwhile, women in the Los Angeles police and sheriff’s departments were engaging in similar battles.

In 1972, female sheriff’s deputies were first sent on patrol. A year later the first female officers in the Los Angeles Police Department took to the streets. And, in 1974, the Glendale Police Department followed suit.

Thompson, who was then a captain, remembers the time well.

New Uniform Designed

Because field uniforms for female officers were not available for purchase, then-Chief Duane R. Baker asked Thompson to design a uniform.

“I didn’t know the first thing about designing a uniform. But I did it and the the women hated it with a purple passion,” Thompson said, laughing at the memory of the dowdy skirt, ill-fitting double-breasted jacket and hat that looked like it belonged to an airline stewardess.

“I felt so sorry for them,” he said, “but the chief wanted to preserve their effeminate appearance.” Their guns and handcuffs, he said, were carried in specially designed purses.

The Los Angeles sheriff’s and police departments outfitted the women in similar attire. But the women rebelled and, within a year, each agency discarded the unflattering uniforms.

“Finally they realized that women couldn’t be going over fences in a skirt,” said Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Sgt. Wilma Morris, a 15-year veteran of the force.

Another hurdle was the height and weight standards.

Morris, who squeaked by the 5-foot-3 height requirement mandated by the Sheriff’s Department, remembers frantically trying to gain six pounds in a week to meet the 111-pound minimum.

“I was stuffing myself with everything I could find,” she said. “And I made it.”

During the late 1970s, the courts ruled the standards sexually discriminatory and the departments abolished them, opening the door for more women. Today, physical standards are based on height and weight proportions.

Sue Maupin, a Glendale police agent who was among the first female officers sent to patrol Glendale, said the late 1970s and early 1980s saw many female officers battling an identity crisis as they tried to win respect of male peers.

“Some were trying to be very mannish, very boisterous--they weren’t behaving normally,” she said.

Maupin, who trains women rookies, says she counsels young females against such behavior.

“I think the best way to get accepted is to be assertive, be your own person and a professional police officer. In other words, don’t get caught up in gender,” she said.

Now, with the battle for acceptance by male officers apparently behind them, the women can focus their attention on establishing an aura of command on the streets. It is a feat that has become easier as the sight of women in uniform has become more common, Morris said.

Morris recounted an incident earlier in her career with the Sheriff’s Department in which she finessed a large, unruly drunk into handcuffs for transport to the station.

“He kept saying, “I’ll go with you little lady, but you’re not putting handcuffs on me,’ ” she recalled.

Morris said she unsuccessfully explained that department policy required that the man be handcuffed inside the police car. So she tried another tactic.

“I told him I would lose my job if my sergeant saw me take him in without handcuffs and that, if I lost my job, I wouldn’t be able to feed my nine kids. He turned around, put his arms behind his back and said, “Go ahead.”

Men trying to help sometimes can be even more troublesome, the women say.

Glendale officer Kim Lardie was almost forced to arrest a man who tried to defend her honor.

It happened one night just after she followed a teen-age reckless driver and his friend into a restaurant. When the youths became verbally abusive during questioning, she asked them to step outside the restaurant. Once out the door, the teens continued shouting profanities, she said.

“Then this guy and his girlfriend walked out of the restaurant. The man came over and said, ‘Don’t talk that way to a lady cop,’ and he hits the guy who’s talking to me, right in the face,” she said. “So here I’ve got this problem of an assault that occurred in my presence.”

The teen-ager, she said, declined to press charges.

But even unwanted gallantry is showing a noticeable decline, the female officers report.

“People are getting used to seeing us, so we’re not such a novelty,” Morris said.