Now-retired police Capt. Julie Johnson has broken the law-enforcement brass ceiling several times. That doesn’t mean it’s always been easy.
Not that she’s complaining.
Johnson, who retired this month, recounted her rise through male-dominated police ranks to Shafiq Abdussabur on the latest episode of WNHH radio’s “Urban Talk Radio” program.
A criminal justice major at the University of Alabama, Johnson got pregnant her junior year of college, and spent the final three semesters of her undergraduate career as both a full-time student and a full-time mom.
An internship in Alabama’s Juvenile Detention Center inspired her to look into graduate studies in corrections counseling and social work. She enrolled in the University of New Haven after returning home to her native Milford.
“My path is definitely not a straight path to the New Haven Police Department,” she said on the latest episode of the show. She loved school, which she balanced with waitressing to support her young daughter. She excelled in an internship at the NHPD’s Sex Bias unit, and a second one at the state public defender’s office, where she worked with several ex-officers. But she still didn’t think of policing in Connecticut as a viable career choice for her.
“People found out that I had a degree in criminal justice, they were like: ‘You’re gonna be a police officer.’ I’m like: ‘I don’t really think so,’” she recalled.
That changed one afternoon, when then-NHPD-Chief Nicholas Pastore came to speak to a class she was taking in criminal procedure with state Supreme Court Justice Flemming L. Norcott, Jr. Pastore talked about community policing. She was transfixed.
“I had never seen him, heard him speak, heard about community policing before,” she said. “After, I was enthralled. I was enthralled with his ideas. He talked about getting women on policing and he said [to me]: ‘As a matter of fact we’re hiring right now.’”
The rest, Johnson says, is history.
“The next day I went down, got an application, filled out the application. Within two months I saw myself sitting in the academy. It’s funny, because I still did not know I wanted to be a police officer. Here I am, my daughter was 2 at the time, I thought I would just … I just thought that this could lead to something. Now you look back and I can’t imagine my life without it.”
She also can’t imagine it without certain, if limited, brass ceilings. A few of them are explained below in excerpts from her interview with fellow cop Abdussabur.
Lucy Gellman Photo
Johnson at WNHH.
Do you see law enforcement being different for you as a female, opposed to if you were a male?
I definitely see t different. That doesn’t mean that it’s worse for me, it’s just different. People say all the time: Women can do whatever men can do. I can say that. I came on as a single parent, I was lucky to have a support system that enabled me to become a police officer. Many women do not have that opportunity. But the New Haven Police Department historically has been inclusive, and at the time when I got on, was really making a push to put more women on the force. I could tell you that seldom did I ever feel that I was held down because I was a woman. I’m not saying that it doesn’t happen … I felt from day one that the police academy was inclusive. We did everything. We weren’t treated any different. We were all a team.
I can’t pretend that I’m going to be able to take on a 300-pound man without using other skills, but I know that I have to build on my physical limitations, and so I believe that I’m a very good communicator. I worked on that, on talking to people. I know that there are … you have to problem solve. I tell new officers all the time, especially women: Keep an open mind. If you think you can’t do something, you can. You just have to be a problem solver and think about alternative ways that you’re gonna get the job done. It’s hard trying to raise a family and be a police officer at the same time, but policing and the New Haven Police Department gave me so much for my family. Gave me opportunities that are unmatched in other police departments.
A lot of female police officers come on the job — they come on single, and they leave single. You came on single, and you’re leaving with a husband. Are there more challenges to relationships as female police officers, in terms of getting married, than for men?
It’s very difficult with relationships as a female police officer. I had boyfriends who weren’t police officers and they just don’t get it. You know? They don’t get the shift work, they don’t get the relationships that you have with your mostly male coworkers, and they don’t get the power that you have. So it’s difficult. Not that it can’t be done.
Talk about the power. What do you mean?
You have to have this confidence as a police officer, and you go to work and you make decisions and you have this confidence. Sometimes they don’t get it. Sometimes people are able to make it work. I can tell you that I met a wonderful husband at the New Haven Police Department, and we’re lucky to still be married. You see how many couples get married and get divorced. We’re married 12 years; he’s an awesome father and great husband, and I can tell you that I’m lucky. It’s not just women. Male police officers, they have trouble in relationships. Just as women you’re working in a predominately male-dominated profession and so it’s hard for other men to see that and to see the other relationships being built that are platonic.
For young women out there that are looking to get into law enforcement, any advice for them?
I would tell them one of the biggest reasons why people don’t get on the job is physical fitness. There’s a reason why that test is first, it eliminates 50 percent of people trying to get on, an the test is not difficult. I would say that if you’re interested in becoming a police officer, especially women … I would say, start doing pushups.
How many pushups can you do?
In a minute?
Right now.
Probably in a minute I could do … at least 20. 25. When we took the test I was in the best shape of my life. If you’re thinking about being a police officer, just get out there and walk.
I want to turn our conversation to a different direction in law enforcement. According to a June 10 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2007 women represented 15 to 27 percent of sworn law enforcement officers in larger departments. The Justice Department says many women encounter what s called the “brass ceiling,” and are unable to rise to higher supervisory positions despite their qualifications. And that many women don’t reach these positions because of their fear of oppression from male coworkers. I looked at your bio and I’ve worked under you, so I know how you’ve moved in the department — talk about that, cause you broke the ceiling. A captain is pretty much the highest rank within the structure. Captains run the show.
You know, I think sometimes people forget I was skipped twice on tests, early on. Two years in we were able to take the detective exam. I went in, I scored high enough to be promoted, and I was skipped.
How did you feel about that?
It felt awful. It felt awful. I’m going to tell you … Chief [Melvin] Wearing was the chief at the time. I went in, it wasn’t vindictive, it was a nice conversation about how I only had two years on the job, and I think it was a wake up call for me. At that time in my life — still now — I don’t really dwell on things. kind of use it to move on. And so I did, and it gave me two more years on valuable experience on the street.
Four years in, I took the Sergeants exam, i was skipped to make sergeant but they made me a detective. They went back to the list and … gave me a consolation gift. Which was great, because I always wanted to be a detective. My career really followed the path I wanted it to follow, in kind of a roundabout way. So I was skipped on the detective’s exam, I was skipped on the sergeant’s exam … two years later, they made me a sergeant.
Two years later, they revised the whole “one in three,” where they go right down the ranks. When that happened, I was approached to join lawsuits and do this and that, and I always said no. I said: God has a plan, I’m gonna follow that plan, and use it to my advantage. I figured if I worked my hardest, success would follow.
You keep an open mind about what can and can’t be done. And it worked for me. It worked for me. I could tell you that there were times that sometimes I felt that: Here I am, I’m not being acknowledged for doing this work, but I just kept my head down and I kept on going.
Where are we [police] going?
I think that it’s presently very difficult to be a police officer, and I think that it’s difficult to hire police officers. Young people probably are having second thoughts about becoming police officers. I know that there’s a police department in this state who had to close down their testing because they didn’t get any applicants. I think New Haven’s fortunate. We do a lot of alternative training in our training academy, we’ve moved a lot towards community involvement from the beginning and I think that it’s easy to say that we’re going to hire people from New Haven to become police officers in New Haven, but that’s not the reality. We are going to get people who we have to mold into the police officers we want them to be, and I think that’s the biggest challenge. That should be our top priority. I think that it will be very difficult for the next 10 years to have police officers who are not community-oriented.
To listen to the entire episode, click on or download the audio above, or subscribe to WNHH’s “Elm City Lowdown” podcast on Soundcloud or iTunes.
Now-retired police Capt. Julie Johnson has broken the law-enforcement brass ceiling several times. That doesn't mean it's always been easy.
But Black women have more of a hard time.
New Haven's First Black Female Police Captain Files Discrimination Lawsuit
New Haven's first black female police captain is suing the city for discrimination that she says dates back to 2012.
Patricia Helliger is a 20-year veteran of the department. She was promoted to captain three months ago. The lawsuit says Helliger was subject to a campaign of racial and gender harassment that delayed that promotion.
http://wnpr.org/post/new-havens-first-black-female-police-captain-files-discrimination-lawsuit