No place in the Washington area was safer on Friday morning than the Golden Corral restaurant in Largo, Md., where more than 80 retired District policewomen had gathered for a reunion breakfast. These were ladies with whom you would not want to mess.

       Support our journalism. Subscribe today. arrow-right

       “That woman was a hell-raiser,” said Sheila Hutchins, a retired captain, nodding toward Phyllis Knight, who had just been introduced as “the matriarch, the queen of 7D.” That’s the policing district in Southeast D.C.

       Knight’s sister, Ethel Johnson, was at the Golden Corral, too. She’d also been a D.C. police officer, working in every district but 7D.

       Most of the women were dressed in shades of blue, a sign of the sisterhood of the badge. Old habits die hard.

       Story continues below advertisement

       “We’re not gonna put our backs to the room,” said Merrender Quicksey, explaining the way she sits in any restaurant. “I never roll down my windows when I’m driving. Nobody’s gonna stick a gun in my car.”

       Advertisement

       Her children used to get tired of her constant vigilance.

       “My daughter would say, ‘Don’t come in here talking that police stuff,’？” said Quicksey, 67, who joined the force in 1982 and retired as a lieutenant in 2010.

       For many of the women, the year 1973 loomed large. That was when the D.C. police dropped its requirement that recruits be 5 feet 7 inches tall. Suddenly, anyone over 5 feet could join. Applications from women poured in.

       So did applications from shorter men. This sometimes caused friction.

       Story continues below advertisement

       “You can tell all of us got some height,” said Thomasine Johnson, who was sitting at a four-top with Bertha Vincent-Powe, Anne Scott and S.K. Brown, all of whom had an inch or two on your friendly columnist.

       “A 5-8 policewoman working with a 5-2 policeman?” Johnson said with a snort. “You’re in a police car with a bench seat. He’s a little Napoleon, so of course he’s got to drive, pulling that seat way up.”

       Advertisement

       There had been women in the police department for decades, but they had mostly been restricted to dealing with female prisoners or juveniles. In the 1970s, they started patrolling the streets with men. Some of the men were none too happy.

       Beverly Medlock, 74, was the first woman to attend the new police academy at Blue Plains in 1971. “People kept complaining that I took a good man’s job from him,” she said.

       Story continues below advertisement

       This was a room full of firsts. Hutchins, 67, was the first officer to walk across the stage pregnant to be promoted to lieutenant.

       “They told me I had to wait until after I had the baby,” she said. “I said, ‘Hell no.’？”

       Hutchins was seven months pregnant at the time — “They had to make a maternity uniform for me,” she said — and demolished the rule that pregnant officers had to stand down.

       Advertisement

       Vincent-Powe, 72, was the first female sergeant in the traffic division. Scott, 77, was the first woman in the helicopter unit.

       Scott’s cover had been blown after spending three years undercover during a long-running sting operation. When her face appeared on the local TV news, she decided it was time for a new gig.

       Story continues below advertisement

       “I didn’t want to be back on the street,” said Scott. In 1980, she started as an observer in a police chopper, then took private lessons to earn her helicopter pilot’s license.

       Her nickname is “Scottie,” as in “Beam me up, Scottie,” she explained.

       Brown, 70, was the first woman to ride a Harley-Davidson in the motor unit. She’d graduated at the top of her academy class and chose special operations as her first assignment. After a few years, she wanted to switch to motorcycles, but her application was repeatedly rejected.

       Advertisement

       Brown finally asked why and was told point-blank it was because of her gender.

       “So I sued,” she said.

       When the case came before a judge, the defense admitted Brown had been excluded from the motor division because she was a woman.

       Story continues below advertisement

       “That lady hit the gavel so quick it scared everybody,” said Brown, who won the case and went on to serve in the motor unit for two and a half years. During that time, male officers cut her brake lines, urinated on her bike and smeared it with feces, she said.

       “It was a road, but we traveled,” said Vincent-Powe, 72.

       All the women remembered where they were on Sept. 20, 1974, the day Officer Gail Cobb was shot while attempting to arrest a bank robbery suspect downtown, the first policewoman to die in the line of duty.

       “Everybody I know called me that day,” said Brown.

       The reunion was organized by Audrey Scott-Shelton, 71, a police officer from 1973 to 1995 who lives in Bowie. It was the first reunion since January 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic paused gatherings.

       Advertisement

       Story continues below advertisement

       “We used to go to the funerals of other officers,” Scott-Shelton said. “It was always a sad occasion. There would always be a bunch of policewomen there. I said we’ve got to stop meeting like this. We’ve got to meet where we can laugh and have fellowship.”

       The retired officers certainly laughed when I asked them about TV cop shows.

       “Everybody’s shooting, and nobody gets shot,” Brown said dismissively.

       Twitter: @johnkelly

       For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/john-kelly.