What Goes Around...

As the first woman to join my city's police force, the path of my career in law enforcement was fraught with many shin-bruising obstacles all along the way. The majority of law enforcement officials at that time adamantly contended that there was no place for women in uniformed policing; that women would only get their fellow male officers hurt or killed coming to the females' "defense", never considering what would eventually prove to be fact as opposed to fallacy regarding women in policing. (Oddly enough, the only two times I was seriously injured in the line of duty was secondary backing up and/or to protecting fellow male officers). Once women managed to break through the blue lines and join the team, lo and behold... turns out we compensated quite handily for our overall "lesser strength" than our male counterparts by substituting brains for brawn. Our performance evaluations, measured in terms of felony arrest/conviction rates, problem-solving capabilities, citizen satisfaction, etc., steadfastly equaled - and often surpassed - those of the fellers.

But I was a 'pioneer' on this front at that time - and only 5-foot, 2 and a half inches tall and 106 pounds soaking wet. My city's Chief of Police had publicly stated that the day his Department hired a female cop would be the day he retired. He proved himself a man of his word... he retired from the Force days before I disproved his declaration that I'd never survive the ultra-tough, military boot-camp style Ohio State Patrol Academy. I hate a sore loser....

But then, I digress...

Columbus, Ohio. State Patrol Graduation of 33 Police Cadets who'd just gutted out eight grueling weeks of 24-hour, live-in, boot-camp-style demoralization, military marching, drills, and physical fitness training, firearms proficiency training, and, of course, rigorous education regarding federal, state, and municipal criminal laws and the regulations governing the enforcement of same. Three women, each a brand new hire from one of three different, widely separated Departments and jurisdictions, had embarked upon the often brutal training program, and three women completed it - despite explicit "good old boy" instructions being surreptitiously issued by at least one of their Chiefs of Police (mine - ) to "wash us out", rendering us ineligible to serve.

Believe me, the State Patrol Academy Powers That Be felt just as strongly as our Chiefs did that we women "washing out" was a forgone conclusion. In fact, several male cadets had failed and/or dropped out of nearly every single Class in the Academy's history. We three women proved them wrong, and we did so without being accorded any preferential treatment whatsoever. Actually, a couple of my old OSP instructors later confided that they did their best to make life even tougher for us, believing that it was "best for us" not to face the risk of trying to serve as female uniformed patrol officers. Thanks, fellas... .

So there we sat, a class of hardworking, extremely dedicated, brand-spanking new, Class A-uniformed police officers, our proud friends and relatives in the audience, awaiting the obligatory speeches, formal swearing-in, and joyous round of hat-tossing.

I will never forget the "Honored" Guest Speaker that day. He was the Police Chief of a sizable city in my State, and two of my male classmates were about to be sworn in as officers on his Department. This buffoon, while delivering his address, looked pointedly at each of we three female officers, and proceeded to state in front of God and everybody how glad he was that none of us were joining his Department, because he didn't envy our Chiefs' certain to come, sad task of having to inform our loved ones that we'd been maimed or killed in the line of duty. Women, he said, "deserve respect"... but had absolutely no place in uniformed police work, where they would put both the public and fellow officers at risk by virtue of their gender. I'm a person who VERY rarely blushes, but when I do, I flush a deep and abiding crimson hue that radiates from my entire face to my throat and neck, to even my ears. My mother's escort to the Graduation ceremony later recalled that, even at his considerable distance from me while seated in the audience, he could clearly see my fiery red pigmentation contrasting with my blond hair and dark blue police hat.

But the blush was not the product of ire... personally getting angry was an indulgence I dared not imbibe in, given the circumstances at hand. I was far more concerned about the likelihood that my Mother, having witnessed all the discriminatory verbiage and low-balling targeted at me just in the process of getting hired, let alone making it through training, going Defcon 5 in the audience. I feared a distinct possibility existed that my first official act as a peace officer might very well be prying Mama's white-knuckled choke hold loose from the throat of the dress uniformed bung-hole presently standing at the podium.

Thankfully, though absolutely livid, Mother for the most part, retained her composure. I distinctly heard her muffled protestation in the background, but the Guest Speaker remained blissfully ignorant of just how close he'd come to having my Mother polish the gymnasium floor with his face...

To this day, Mama still fumes whenever the topic arises... and to this day, she still gets angrier still about that idiot's haughty and insulting commentary than I ever have. Oh, yes... it pissed me off; that I grant you. But my Mother took it even more personally, I think, than I did. And when the topic does arise, I endeavor to soothe her ruffled feathers by saying, "don't worry about it, Mama - what goes around comes around"...

The Canton Police Department has for decades served as "home turf" for for several "bad seed" police officers whose conduct/deeds have been "inappropriate" - and often made local, state, and/or national news. Canton has been sarcastically referred to as a "little Youngstown", Youngstown being a formerly Mafia-infested Ohio metropolis once riddled with corruption and graft. Just yesterday, former Canton Police Officer Bobby Cutts, despite his feigned histrionics on the witness stand, was convicted of kidnapping and murdering his extra-marital girlfriend and their 8-plus month old unborn daughter, as well as abusing the expectant mother's corpse by dousing her with chlorine, wrapping her in an area rug, and dumping her in a distant woods. Cutts, a Canton Police officer at the time the crimes occurred, was also convicted of endangering his own diaper-clad, toddler son by leaving him locked up and alone in the apartment where his mother had just been murdered, with no nourishment or adult care - and the still open bottle of chlorine bleach on the bed within the toddler's reach - for nearly 48 hours, until his panicky maternal grandmother forced entry and thankfully found him alive. Cutts then proceeded to swear to authorities, the press, and the expectant young mother's frantic friends and family that he had absolutely no idea where she could possibly be... for nine excruciating days. It subsequently came out that this was far from Cutts' first brush with both the law and fathering children outside of his longstanding marriage. His history had been "colorful", indeed, both in terms of his conduct in the line of duty and in his personal life... so "colorful", in fact, that many question why he was still on the Police Force when this latest horror occurred.

That question has never been difficult for me to answer. Pardon the dangled preposition, but guess what Police Department our State Patrol Academy Graduation Guest Speaker was Chief of...?

He may be gone, but vestiges of his mindset remain alive and well, passed down through the years and still inextricably, albeit now far more covertly, woven throughout the cut of that Department's cloth. "Boys will be boys", eh, Chief?

What goes around inevitably does comes around... in this case, in the form of national disgrace. Unfortunately, God only knows how many victims - past, present, and future - have been and will continue to be flattened in the process.