Spot on sir. I too worked as a cop for 25 years in a large metro area about 1.6 million population with approximately 1600-1700 sworn. I still remember a call for service for some type of disturbance, my cover officer was a 5-3 130 female. Upon arrival and contact we were faced with a 300 plus lb angry Samoan male, suffering from some type of psychotic episode and you could see in his eyes he was getting ready to go berserk. I called for backup, instructed my partner to stand away with her back to a wall, and if I lost, to shoot him. This was before the issuance of Tasers (which are not always effective). My less lethal weapons were a 29 inch cocobolo wood baton and pepper spray.
I will say I worked with some pretty good female cops however. They knew their physical limitations and performed accordingly. In my opinion, the majority of the job involved using your brain housing group, practicing good officer safety at all times and making sound tactical decisions. Just like the military, there were two separate physical performance standards, a reduced standard for females.
Our agency had a very liberal use of force policy, the carotid artery hold was still authorized as less lethal force and lethal force could be used for a size disparity physical threat to mention a couple. I recall a smaller male officer, probably 5-4, 150 lbs, chasing a strong arm robbery suspect who was significantly larger, who stopped, turned and faced the officer and punched him. The officer subsequently shot the suspect (We averaged 12 or more OIS a year). I was 6-3, 245 during those years (I’ve slimmed down a bit in retirement) and I remember thinking to myself, damn there would be a lot of bodies laying on the street if I shot every suspect who tried to punch me!
We had a full time SWAT team of 12 officers and a reserve team of 12 officers. There had never been a female SWAT officer in the history of our department, primarily because they stubbornly refused to utilize the National FBI physical testing standard for SWAT. Part of our own in house SWAT test involved doing a minimum of 4 pull-ups with a weighted 45 lb. vest. Very few females on our agency could do this. I knew of one, a weightlifter, but she was never interested in SWAT. As an aside, I say SWAT so the reader can readily identify, our acronym was SED, special emergency detail.
Those were the good ol’ days, sure miss them. Anyways, as long as all standards are met, I have no problem. Where standards are lowered, I have a problem.
