Campus News - Spartan Daily

October 26, 2004

Three female officers work for UPD
Each said gender has little effect on job
By Ruth C. Wamuyu
Daily Staff Writer
October 26, 2004

Two of them met their husbands through police activity and all three appreciate the family-like atmosphere at their station, but the female police officers at the University Police Department are uniquely individual and as different as their reasons for joining the force.

Capt. Marianne Alvarez

Capt. Marianne Alvarez remains haunted by a woman who leapt in front of a train when she worked for the Mountain View Police Department.

" I have seen some sad things that have affected me for the longest time," Alvarez said. "That really stuck with me -- it was very sad and it was very gruesome."

Alvarez also said she gets upset when she sees parents neglecting their children.

" I found a 2-year-old wandering out on 10th Street and there is traffic there," she said. "I had him for quite a while and the parents did not even know he was gone. When I see parents driving around with kids in their cars without seatbelts or car seats -- that really upsets me."

While these memories haunt Alvarez she said a lot of good things have happened to her while at the department.

" One big thing is I met my husband while working on patrol," she said. "He had called for assistance. I responded, helped make an arrest and now I have two beautiful little girls."

But her days of patrolling the streets are over, she said.

" My typical day is I come in and return phone calls, check my e-mails and go through my mail," she said.
" Then I look at my calendar to see what I have to do for the day. It consists of meeting with my people because I am responsible for hiring, training, records, dispatch, investigations and evidence. Every day there is something going on."

Alvarez said her dad's upbringing was responsible for her choice of career.

" He raised me more like a son than a daughter, and I did a lot of sports," she said.

" He got me into competitive judo when I was 12 years old."

Alvarez said she competed nationally and internationally as a judo competitor.

" That sort of interaction gave me confidence in myself as well as mental and physical strength," she said. She said she then went to college in her home state, Massachusetts, and studied criminal justice for four years and found she enjoyed it very much.

" I decided I wanted to do something either in criminal law or law enforcement," she said.

A chance opportunity lured her to San Jose State University to do her master's degree in criminal justice.
" I was looking for a job and I looked in the newspaper and saw that they were hiring here," she said, "and you could get your education at the same time and that sounded really good to me. I paid $3 a credit, so I got my education pretty much for free. It was the best thing I ever did."

Still, Alvarez said she was unsure about the decision she had made.

" But once I got to the academy, I figured out it was what I was supposed to do," she said.

Alvarez has been with the campus police for the last 12 years but left for one year to join the Mountain View Police Department in 1995.

" I thought the grass was greener on the other side," she said.

Alvarez said it was in Mountain View that she felt treated differently because of her gender.

" We were not treated very well as females," she said.

" They had a big lawsuit going on with females there -- I was not involved -- they were being sued for discrimination and sexual harassment. I saw why and I decided it was not so good there and I went back to campus police where the chief welcomed me back and I felt like I just went back home."

Alvarez said one of the reasons she has stayed with the campus police is that it is a small department.
" It feels more like a family environment," she said.

" When you work for a large department like San Jose Police Department, you can almost get lost in the department."

She said her husband has worked for the San Jose Police Department for more than 20 years and he did not know everyone there.

" Here at campus police you know everyone," she said.

" You know their families ... you get close. I enjoy working in the university environment too. It changes all the time."

Alvarez also said she is not treated differently at the campus because she is female but said females may feel challenged to prove themselves when they first become police officers.

" I went through it," she said.

" As a female you feel as though you have to prove yourself a little more as far as being able to handle an arrest. Or if you get into some sort of physical altercation-- you want to make sure that your counterpart or your peers feel as though you are going to take care of business just as well as they are."

Alvarez said her judo training helped with her confidence in handling the physical part of the job.
Though the female police officers receive the same training as male police officers, Alvarez said the females might have to rely on their weapons more.

" You may depend more on your weapons, pepper spray and so on instead of going hands on," she said.

" You may realize that you are not as strong as your 6-feet-5-inches-tall, 200-pound peer, so you are not going to go hands on with this big gorilla here."

Alvarez said that in order to make those decisions, female officers have to know their own limitations and strengths.

One of those strengths is that female officers tend to talk to their suspects, she said.

" I think females may approach things differently," she said.

" Usually we are able to talk to them, calm them down, have them put their hands behind their back on their own and then place the handcuffs on them."

Alvarez said she experienced this fi rst hand when she worked with an all-female team.
" We never got into any physical altercations," she said.

Officer Dorrie Rimple

Sometimes, however, it becomes necessary to use or threaten to use force, said Officer Dorrie Rimple.
She told of one time when people on the street told her some armed group in a sports utility nearby had beaten up a man and she drew her gun and approached the van.

" I had to approach the van as a high risk stop," she said.

Rimple said the neighbors, because of a recent shooting death of a suspect by a police officer, came out to castigate her.

" It disturbed me because I really had to be concentrating but the neighbors were yelling at me and I was getting distracted," she said.

" Some people were even crossing the street right between me and the vehicle."

Rimple said she has only been with the department for two years and started her career as a 911 dispatcher for Santa Cruz County, and then went to work for the jail when she needed a change.

When things became too routine at the jail, Rimple said she put herself through the police academy so she could pursue being a patrol officer.

" I met a San Jose State officer at a Christmas party and he encouraged me to apply to the department," she said.

Rimple said she likes patrolling because "you never know what is going to happen in a day."

She said one time she was driving from South Campus and saw a woman in a car seemingly having an argument with another woman.

" It turned out they had just had an accident and the woman in the car was having labor pains," she said.
However, some experiences bring a grimace to Rimple's face.

" I had an altercation with an older gentleman," she said.

" He was bleeding from a fall and in the struggle I ended up being covered in his blood. I could have been exposed to some disease."

The 5-foot-8-inch offi cer also admitted that sometimes she has to call for backup.

" I saw a woman walking with blood on her throat," she said.

" When I was talking to her, her boyfriend came back. He was intoxicated and aggressive. I held him against the wall till my backup came."

She said she had to ask her backup to get there faster.

" I could only hold him, I could not secure him."

She said that particular suspect went to jail because he had cut the woman's throat with a key.

Rimple said she met her husband, a police sergeant with the Los Gatos Police Department, when she was personally involved in an altercation with her boyfriend.

" I called 911 for help and he is the one who turned up," she said.

" Afterwards I would see him around town and we started seeing each about eight months after I broke up with the boyfriend in question."

Rimple said having a police sergeant for a husband has its benefi ts.

" I go home and ask him a lot of questions," she said.

But Rimple said having two police officers in the family was hard for their 23- year-old daughter when she was growing up because of missed celebrations with both parents working long hours.
" Your family celebrates without you," she said.

Rimple said most women do not consider law enforcement.

" But I am always encouraging women to consider law enforcement," she said.

Sgt. Jenny Pak

Sgt. Jenny Pak is in a position to do a little more than encourage women.

" I am the one who facilitates the recruitment process," she said.

" So I work with human resources to make sure the job gets posted. But I don't make decisions per se, but I coordinate all the procedures required to hire a police officer."

Pak said the department goes to the police academy and job fairs to encourage women and other minorities to apply.

" We break the stereotype," she said.

" You do not have to be a 6-foot, 200-pound, all-muscle officer."

Sgt. Jenny Pak, 5 feet, 4 inches tall, said public perception was the only possible challenge women may face but training takes care of that.

" You use the training you have received and your experience," she said.

" It is all about how you deal with people out on the street. If you treat people with respect and professionalism -- you get that back."

Like Alvarez, Pak joined campus police through the cadet program.

" I was a student here and I found out about the cadet program in the police department here," she said.

" My initial field was going to be child development because I wanted to be a teacher. Then I joined the police department as a volunteer and working there made me interested in becoming a police officer."

Pak said she has been with campus police since 1993 when she first volunteered.

She said she was hired as a full-time officer in 1996.

Pak said she stayed with the department because of the family-like atmosphere and the support from colleagues.

" You don't get treated different because you are female, or you are from another race or a different background," she said.