What started as a chance to get Chelsy Goertler’s daughter, 4-year-old Kinley, a tour of a SWAT vehicle, grew into a full-on recruiting and informational event for women and girls interested in careers in law enforcement.
Goertler was with her daughter shopping for a SWAT officer costume for Halloween, and Kinley was sad to find the packaging indicated it was a boy’s costume. Goertler shared their disappointment in a Facebook post that quickly went viral.
Kinley received photos and messages from female police officers from around the county, including the Vancouver Police Department. The agency invited Kinley for her own tour, then it ballooned into a full-on special event, called Girl Cops Are Awesome, held Wednesday afternoon at the Vancouver Police Department’s East Precinct.
Girls, their parents — and a few boys — came and checked out police vehicles and spoke to female law enforcement officers from the Vancouver department and the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
Beyond providing a good chance for girls to learn more about law enforcement as a job, Goertler, of Camas, said it was good for all the children to get a chance to meet and interact with police officers.
“It’s really neat that kids at these young ages are learning that police officers can be trusted, and that they’re nice people,” she said. “I think that’s so important with all the negativity that we’re seeing in the media right now.”
Amelia and Natalie Renner, sisters and high school students from La Center, were at the event, and said it was good to have a chance to talk to female officers and see the department’s major crimes vehicle.
“It’s been really cool knowing that it’s not just a man’s job anymore,” Amelia said.
Her sister, Natalie, agreed. Both have family in law enforcement and are interested in criminal justice careers themselves.
“It’s not as scary as I thought it would be, and they seemed a lot nicer than, honestly, I thought,” Natalie said, adding that the experience helped make getting into the field sound a bit less intimidating.
Of the police department’s 184 sworn officers, 23 are women, including two commanders, one lieutenant, three sergeants, one corporal and 16 officers.
Nationwide, about 27 percent of all officers in 2013 were women, according to the FBI, with about 30 percent representation in agencies in metropolitan counties, and roughly 20 percent in rural areas.
People look at law enforcement and see it as a traditionally male-dominated profession, said Lt. Scott Creager, who handles recruitment efforts for the department, which means it’s up to police agencies to be more proactive about recruiting women.
“Some of the women and some of the men I know absolutely shatter those generalized roles we tend to put people in,” he said.
He got interested in police work after meeting and connecting with a police officer, and said events such as Wednesday’s can start sparking interest in law enforcement among women and girls.
Finding a mentor and role model in law enforcement seems common among male officers, said Vancouver police Sgt. Deb Libbey. Unfortunately, when it comes to recruiting, she said, women and people in minority populations frequently don’t have that when they start the process to become a cop.
Sheriff’s Commander Erin Nolan said many of her female peers didn’t have mentors.
“We just dove in not knowing what we didn’t know, and it should be a better experience” she said.
Kayla Rodriguez, a high school student with the Clark County Skills Center’s criminal justice program, thought the event was good for showing people just how many women there are in law enforcement.
“It’s really a great thing because there’s a lot of people saying, ‘Oh, girls aren’t as tough as the guys,’ ” she said. Women go through just as much as men to become police officers, she said. “Maybe even more because they’re expected to do better.”
Mary Jane Long, a Vancouver patrol officer, said her advice for women interested in law enforcement isn’t much different than her advice for men.
“As a woman, like anybody else in this career, you have to be tough, have a thick skin, and be willing to have people yell at you, but be willing to want to talk back to them nicely,” she said.
Creager said he hopes to hold more informational events aimed at women, where people can meet and talk to female officers about the job.
“I can tell you about being a police officer all day long,” he said. “I don’t know anything about being a female police officer.”
For her part, Kinley, who got it all started, expressed general approval and excitement for the event, between fielding multiple interviews and running between the assembled police vehicles and a nearby playground.
Goertler said her daughter is pretty determined to become a cop, but “occasionally, she’ll be like, ‘I want to be a fairy.’”
