Woman on Patrol : A Volunteer Police Officer Can’t Resist the Challenge

Eight years ago Sheri Dillon donned a uniform as a volunteer police officer for the Burbank Police Department.

As much as she had prepared for emergencies during an intensive training course at the Rio Hondo Police Reserve Academy, she was still fairly green on the July morning when a radio call reported a speeding sports car and she and her training partner were dispatched to the scene.

It was the first time she realized the dangers surrounding her new voluntary job, and although it has been years, she spoke about it recently as if it had happened yesterday.

“We were pursuing a car, a Datsun 280-Z, that had two women in it,” Dillon said. “They were speeding and as they turned the corner at Olive and Victory they hit a telephone pole and crashed. The car burned right in front of me.”

“You don’t ever forget about” something like that, she said. “That’s the hard part of police work, readjusting and trying to go home and live a normal life.”

Dillon is the only woman among 19 reserve officers on the Burbank force. Being the only female is something Dillon is used to. She was the only girl in a family of four children. She is also the only woman on the security police force at Burbank Airport, where she works full time.

She added that many women may not be attracted to law enforcement because it is usually not presented as a career option when they’re younger. Young women also get little experience working with mostly male groups and are subjected less often to the tough discipline that young men receive in sports and military training.

“Women grow up and we don’t go through football training or have coaches yelling at us,” she said. “We’re put on pedestals and told to look pretty. But going through the academy it’s regimented and there are no excuses. You do it or you don’t.”

Her colleagues don’t treat her with kid gloves, which is the way she wants it.

“They treat me with respect and I deal with them honestly,” she said. “I don’t think they’ve ever been intimidated by it. I think they like me for it.”

Dillon became a volunteer police officer almost by accident. She walked into the Burbank station eight years ago seeking a job, perhaps driving a vehicle or working in the jail. But when she was handed an application to try out for the reserves, she couldn’t resist the challenge.

“I had no idea what I was getting into,” said Dillon, who described herself as being very athletic and competitive as a youth. “But I thought maybe it’d turn into a career. I didn’t think about the action or the danger, that’s not what I went into it for.”

Two people who do think about the dangers of the job are Dillons’ sons--Jeffrey, 13, and Scott, 9--who both object to her work. Dillon, a single mother, said allaying their fears is her biggest challenge.

“My oldest boy says I’m crazy for being an officer,” she said. “He doesn’t want me out there at all. He’s totally against it.”

Dillon, who has never used her gun while on duty, said the danger “really doesn’t hit you until you’re out there on the streets,” and it’s something she avoids thinking about.

But danger is a part of the job, according to Lt. Tom Johnston of the Sheriff Department’s reserve forces bureau, which trains some Burbank reserves. “We’ve had some reserves injured and we’ve had some killed in the line of duty,” he said.

Reserves have been a part of the Burbank Police Department since 1955. Their purpose is to assist regular police officers with patrol duty, help out during natural disasters and provide the department with additional staffing when needed. They are not paid, but do receive a stipend to cover the cost of keeping their uniforms clean.

Although volunteers, reserves carry guns and have the same powers of arrest, search and seizure as regular officers. The differences between a reserve and a regular officer are few, said Sgt. Mike Keeffe, who has been with the Burbank Police Department for 13 years and has supervised the reserves for the past three.

“If a regular officer is off duty and sees an infraction, he can intervene,” Keeffe explained. “But a reserve cannot act as an officer once they are off duty, nor are they allowed to carry a gun” while off duty.

Reserves must pass the same stringent background checks as regular officers. In addition, they put in about 340 hours of academy training and more than 200 hours in the field. Regular officers get about twice that much training.

After passing all the background checks and making it through the academy, reserves must work a mandatory minimum of eight hours a month.

It is not an easy process, Dillon said.

“There was a lot of stress,” she said. “I had to maintain a regular job, take care of my children and my household, then study after work.”

Dillon said she was driven by determination.

“It was really tough, but I wanted it so badly that I just put everything out of my mind and did it.”

Capt. Russ Jordan, a 16-year veteran reserve, said Dillon is a good partner to have. He remembers when she backed him up in a fistfight five years ago.

“She just jumped in and did the job,” he said. Dillon said the reserves have given her life a sense of direction. If she has any regrets, it’s that she did not enlist earlier.

“I wish I could do it all over again, because if I was 18 I’d go right into it, instead of waiting,” she said. “I love it.”