Female Officers Unwelcome--but Doing Well

Almost lost in the Christopher Commission’s encyclopedia of shockers--both statistical and anecdotal--are women.

Yet in the judgment of some who testified before the commission and the panel’s sole woman member, press and public reactions to the report and its calls for a new kind of police work have overlooked this: while 13% of the Police Department are women, none of the department’s worst 132 offenders in shootings and in use of force and personnel complaints were women.

Women are generally better at averting potential violence, the report adds, because they are “less personally challenged by defiant suspects and feel less need to deal with defiance with immediate force or confrontational language.”

The conclusion of the report--women do a good job by virtually any measure.

But the report also finds that policewomen are still unwelcome in certain quarters, perhaps more than minority male officers. They are ridiculed in computer messages, looked at askance by some training officers and even reportedly doubted by their chief of police.

Chief Daryl F. Gates testified last month to being proud of recruiting more women, “really pleased with my women in the department” and their “magnificent job,” even if they have had “a real tough time (getting accepted) right from the very beginning.”

Yet the same morning that Gates made those remarks, Assistant Chief David D. Dotson told the same panel of a conversation he had in which Gates said just the opposite. They had been discussing research which shows that female officers were doing the job as well as men.

“At the very end,” Dotson testified, Gates “shook his head and said, ‘But I really don’t think they belong out there. . . .’ ”

For the chief of police to think that, Dotson said, “gives people the idea that, yeah, we can still drag our feet on accepting some women. We can’t.”

But out on the streets, in coarse slang flashing on patrol car computer screens, policewomen are apparently trivialized by terms like “sweet cake . . . babes . . . Barbie dolls . . . Sgt. Tits,” and a four-letter vulgarism for vagina--rowdy language almost indistinguishable from references to female suspects or contacts, like “silly broad.”

Women’s very presence on the force is resented by some male officers, who consider them unfit, even a hindrance in a macho cop subculture. The irony is that the communication versus confrontation style of policing that the report advocates is often practiced best by women officers.

As the report put it, “the continued existence of discrimination against female officers can deprive the department of specific skills, and thereby contribute to the problem of excessive force.”

Kathy Spillar, executive director of the Fund for the Feminist Majority, testified before the commission. She criticized it at its inception for having too few women, and directed the same criticism at the Police Department, which is still below its court-ordered 20% level of women officers.

“Come on now, what do we want in policing?” she asked in an interview. “Do we want prevention of crime, or do we want a police force that is violent itself and values violence? And yet women (officers) are ridiculed for not being as aggressive or willing to use force.”

Andrea Sheridan Ordin, a former U.S. attorney in Los Angeles and the only woman on the 10-member commission, said: “We need to study more the fact that women appear not only to be performing well, but are less likely to abuse the public.”

Officers from patrols to Parker Center said they believe “women do not have as much ego invested in winning the argument, but were more interested in getting the job done.” But she also heard a “cavalier and callous attitude toward women and minorities.”

The report deplored an ambience that encourages “hard-nosed” posturing, where officers are rewarded for the number of calls and arrests, not for the less tangible ability to head off problems before they become crises. The hard-nosed style “produces results,” the report says, but “at the risk of creating a siege mentality that alienates the officer from the community.”

Women were a secondary focus of the report--scrutiny was chiefly on excessive force and racism, an effort brought about by the beating of Rodney G. King, a black man.

The commission found little to show that bias is translated into excessive force or harassment of female suspects or victims. But an expert witness on women and police says some male officers’ behavior toward women peers can be a sign of cavalier attitudes toward all women, whether they’re in the front seat of a patrol car or in the back.

Joanne Belknap, associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Cincinnati, said in an interview that she found a link between “stereotypes that women can’t be officers because you have to be macho to be a police officer,” and “a lot of victim-blaming . . . not taking it very seriously. . . . It’s a general view, how they treat women, whether they’re partners or victims or offenders.”

Commission interviews with 90 training officers--responsible for bringing rookies into the mainstream of the Police Department--showed that many of them did not believe women were “as capable, effective or trustworthy” as men. And some patrol car messages showed an awareness among both men and women officers of hostility:

The evening of Nov. 30, 1989: “Hell, no, I dont trust anyone with my cousin unless I know them . . . especially a police ofcr. . . . Most policemen treat women like s--t . . . and I have heard of some guys even getting away with rape because they r ofcrs . . .”

A message apparently from a male officer, sent before dawn on Jan. 14, 1990: “I just wish the rest of the guys would lighten up a bit. . . . You ladies take too much abuse.”

Some female officers testified that computer messages like “Get a job, woman. One that is more suited to a woman, like a secretary, or a receptionist,” and “Don’t give me any lip woman, just obey” left them feeling personally insulted and professionally undercut, however humorously they were meant.

On occasion, they said so. A computer exchange on June 16, 1990: “hi honey r we on for later.” “Don’t call me honey boot . . . u downtown guys may act like that but we’re professional.”

The afternoon of Oct. 19, 1990: “Hey Kim, sweetheart.” “You call me a bimbo then you expect me to answer and when I dont answer then I’m a sweetheart.”

Diane Harber, who retired five years ago as a Police Department captain, consulted with the commission staff. Although pleased that more women are on the force, she is dismayed that they are still fair game for insults masquerading as jokes. She cited a recent Times story about a Soviet policeman visiting the Police Department. When he told one roll call session that female Soviet police officers are kept at desk jobs or juvenile duties, Los Angeles police in the back of the room cheered, the story reported.

“If they’d said ‘we don’t allow no (black) out on patrol,’ some kind of snide ethnic remark--I’d doubt if anyone would have said that, in an open forum with a reporter there,” Harber said. “I thought ‘There it goes, it’s so subtle it’s not subtle.’ ”

Other female cops who testified, and some who didn’t, shrugged off most messages as the rough but inconsequential banter born of the combat tension of big-city police work.

Ten-year veteran Officer Lynda Putz found some of the messages “horrendous.” But most of the time, she said, ‘I’m not thin-skinned--I don’t think most of the people on the job are. I can tease somebody just as much as they can tease me, and it’s all in my opinion in good humor. Once in a blue moon, I’ve had to tell somebody ‘I don’t like that,’ and they’ve stopped.”

Mostly, it’s “a way of releasing stress . . . we joke with guys just the way they joke with us, (about) their hair, their bellies, ‘Oh, you got small shoes, what else is small?”

Without that knockabout humor, “it’s strictly formalities. . . . And nobody wants that kind of working environment.”

Detective Supervisor Kena Brutsch is the Police Department’s coordinator for women’s issues, sexual harassment and family support. She is also producing a training videotape about respect and courtesy, and deplores the computer messages as “outrageous . . . unprofessional . . . they’re not smart. You don’t do things like that.”

In truth, though, she has heard more vulgar insults from citizens than from police. And if she heard it from an officer, “I would probably knock them on their ass. I have enough self-confidence I probably wouldn’t put up with it. But I also have 22 years in the organization. I think sometimes individuals who tolerate it are still acclimating to the work environment.”

It’s a work environment that prizes toughness and self-sufficiency, and women are expected to stand up for themselves, some say.

“First, you’ve got to confront the person, say ‘hey knock it off,’ ” said Newton Division Officer Kelly Artz. “After that, if they don’t knock it off or it gets worse, then you’ve got a problem, you need to do something about it. But every time someone says something, you can’t go running to a supervisor.”

But outspoken black Officer Janine Bouey says that the premium put on being thick-skinned intimidates women into silence.

Rookies are taught that if they can’t take the insults, they “have no place in the department.” Even minority men, especially if they look like “a football player,” have an easier time than women. “And if you’re a minority female, that’s a double whammy.”

Accepting women is more difficult, the report says, when police continue to define the job as one requiring “a major emphasis on physical strength” over other skills, “an emphasis on use of force to control a situation, and a disdain for a more patient, less aggressive approach.”

Belknap said: “Hiring more policewomen would, I believe, increase the chances of having a police force that’s more responsive in a verbal way and less in a violent or hostile way. The problem is they can’t just hire a few token women; what happens then is policing is more likely to change the women than women are to change policing.”

Officer Bouey thinks that is why some policewomen have bought into what she calls the “Jane Wayne syndrome,” drinking and swearing and even swaggering like male officers.

Harber, the retired captain, holds hopes. A recent ceremony marking 1,000 women who had become Police Department officers brought tears to her eyes, and she thought “if you’ve got 1,000 women you’re starting to do something about the critical balance of opinion and climate and tone.”

Computer Messages on Women

The following are among the computer messages between officers reviewed by the Christopher Commission. The excerpts, reprinted as transcribed, contain language that some readers may find offensive. Nov. 17, 1989, 1:30 p.m.: “Its against my better judgment.”

1:30 p.m.: “Dont give me any lip woman, just obey . . . “

1:31 p.m.: “Okay Im sorry.” Jan. 7, 1990, 4:29 p.m.: “Thanks. If only I could slap her I would be happy.” Jan. 22, 1990, 1:35 a.m.: “Pound her into submission . . . and then have her make you breakfast . . . “ Jan. 24, 1990, 4:41 a.m.: “Good advice . . . I guest what I need to do is talk to a few female ofcrs and see how it really is . . . I was told most of the guys dont like females out there . . . Im such a ninny--but I wont be a RTO ( radio telephone operator) forever. I need to move up.” June 8, 1990, 9:12 p.m.: “Hey babes, hows it going, having a good nit Liz.”

9:15 p.m.: “Could b better . . . morebabes”

9:17 p.m.: “Quit calling me babes . . . i dont like that!!!!!!”

9:18 p.m.: “I wasnt calling u babes . . . it is a gener term for some femes.” Oct. 2, 1990, 11:33 a.m.: “Hey slut, when do you want to take code 7.” Oct. 8, 1990, 9:14 p.m.: “We got rid of our two lovely young ladies . . . They both need a few rounds with the old baton . . . wouldnt you say. “