Nine-year-old Alexandria Tuominen climbed atop the police motorcycle, got an officer-guided tour of the switches and buttons, and when she found the siren controls, made her mother jump.
Her mom, Janelle Tuominen, brought her three girls to the Vancouver Police Department’s East Precinct Building for the department’s second Girl Cops are Awesome event Thursday afternoon.
Tuominen said she felt like the event, an afternoon of outreach and recruiting aimed at women and girls, was tailor-made for her family. She brought her three daughters: 9, 6 and 5 years old.
The department parked multiple patrol vehicles, armored cars and even bomb-disposal team robots on the precinct lawn, led guests on tours of the precinct and put on police dog demonstrations.
“I like to come to these events, because it creates a positive image of law enforcement for the kids while they’re young, so if they ever do get in a situation where they need help they won’t be afraid to go ask for help,” Tuominen said.
Last year a then-4-year-old Camas girl named Kinley Goertler was out shopping for a Halloween costume with her mother. They were looking for a SWAT outfit, but found the only costumes on sale seemed to be made and marketed for boys.
Her mother shared her frustration online, and the large social media response included female officers from around the country sending Kinley encouraging notes.
Vancouver officers joined, as well, and later the department organized the first event.
In 2013, about 27 percent of all officers nationwide were women, according to the FBI. About 30 percent of those were in agencies in metropolitan counties, and roughly 20 percent were in rural counties.
Vancouver police Chief James McElvain said there’s no single way to be a cop, and the department is doing more to reflect that in how it recruits, he said.
“Let people see themselves in a uniform,” he said.
Many people might see the patrol vehicles and the gear and find their interest piqued, he said. Others might not, and its those people he’d like at least thinking about a career in law enforcement as well.
“That is such a thin slice of what we do day in and day out,” he said.
There’s helping people, problem solving and communication, among a host of other things.
“Really, it’s kind of like your neighbor,” he said.
Men and boys were just as welcome. Allie Fausette, who plans on testing for a police officer job later this month, brought her 7-year-old son along.
She has family and friends back east who were in law enforcement, and always wanted to be a cop, even after she gravitated toward work in IT.
“My son has lots of questions, lots of concerns with what he knows about police officers,” she said. “When I heard about this, I thought this would be a great opportunity for him to talk to officers, see the different aspects of being a police officer, ask questions that he has in his head about what a police officer is.”
Nicole Young and Molly Shotwell, community corrections officers with the state Department of Corrections, were among the many female officers there to answer questions, and agreed it was a good chance to talk to people.
“It changes the public image of a ‘male law enforcement officer,’ and gives the young girls hope that they can be in this field, as well,” Shotwell said.
They’ve both had rewarding careers, Young said, and with retirements, turnover and growth, there are ample opportunities for women to enter the field.
Young said that when she tells others about her job, they’re often surprised.
“When I tell people what I do, they really open their eyes,” Shotwell said. They’ll ask, “‘You can do that stuff?’ They just have a different image in their head, so it’s important to come out to events like this and try to change that.”
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Correction appended: The attribution in the quote in the last paragraph has been corrected. The article previously was unclear regarding who said what.
