5 female police chiefs in South Florida rise above the ‘brass ceiling,’ mirror national trend

Hallandale Beach Police Chief Sonia Quiñones was recently asked about her new role as top cop: ‘Did no man apply for the job?’

In fact, there were more than 60 applicants and she came out on top.

So did four other women in South Florida who broke through the “brass ceiling” to land police chief posts in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.

Quiñones, 47, was surprised by the man who seemingly didn’t approve and said ‘There’s some roles for men and there’s some roles for women.’ Her response: “I hope your daughters grow up thinking and feeling that one day they can be the president of the United States, they can be the chief of police, they can be whoever they want to be.”

South Florida, which suddenly has a cluster of female chiefs in the past 18 months, is mirroring a national trend. In 2017 alone, media reports show at least 18 new female police chiefs sworn in across the country — in cities like Dallas, Oakland and Honolulu and in smaller rural communities, too. Some say it’s the new normal in policing — where only 13 percent of the workforce is female.

“It’s still a male-dominated profession but I think women have made enormous strides, and I think you’re seeing a culmination of two decades worth of women rising up in their departments,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington D.C.-based policing think tank.

It typically takes law enforcement officers between 15 to 20 years to move up the ranks to police chief, he said. Even with the recent rise of female police chiefs, fewer than 2 percent of woman make it to top brass positions, experts say.

In South Florida, other women who lead their police departments are: Constance Stanley in Lauderhill, Sarah Mooney in West Palm Beach, Delma Noel-Pratt in Miami Gardens and Jeanette Said-Jinete in Medley, a small town west of Hialeah. There are two acting female police chiefs in South Florida: Kelly Harris in Boynton Beach and Ronnie Hufnagel in El Portal in Miami-Dade County.

With the exception of Said-Jinete, who was sworn in as police chief in 2011, all the other women became police chiefs during an 18-month period in 2016 and 2017.

It was about a half-century ago when female police officers were first allowed to patrol streets and respond to emergencies, said Valerie Cunningham, president of the National Association of Women Law Enforcement Executives and deputy chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police.

Since then “they’ve been actively engaged in climbing that ladder to that top executive office,” she said. “I’m a firm believer that others have to see it, to believe it can be achieved.”

Florida saw it’s first female police chief in Minneola, west of Orlando, in 1979 when Sue Hogan was sworn in. Last year, her 25-year-old granddaughter began following in her footsteps and became a police officer in Clermont, according to published reports.

According to the Florida Police Chiefs Association, there are currently 16 women who head police departments — of which there are more than 300 — throughout the state, including the five local police chiefs.

Most all of the South Florida women who became chiefs grew up in their respective police departments, so the transition to the top may have been smoother and uncontroversial, they said.

“They’re comfortable with the fact they have someone who understands the community,” said Mooney, who began working with West Palm Beach police in 1995. “It’s a win-win because they have someone that’s a little different but at the same time has been exposed to the community for a long time.”

Mooney got into policing after an internship at a federal prison in Tallahassee. She wanted to work for the FBI, but needed more experience. So she got hired at her hometown police department. She never left.

Quiñones was a bank teller before she was a cop and was inspired by an uncle who was a Miami-Dade police officer. She wanted to be an FBI agent, too, but once she joined the Hallandale Beach force she stayed and moved up the ranks over nearly 25 years. Since her days at the police academy she had one goal in mind: serve as police chief.

Noel-Pratt, however, came from an outside agency, the Miami-Dade Police Department, before landing in Miami Gardens. In her case, after seven months at the helm, she still feels like many are adjusting to her leadership style.

“It’s not easy at all. You have your challenges, you have those who are very leery because you are a woman,” Noel-Pratt, 47, said. “And then you have some who may not want to follow your vision, so you have to pretty much lay out your vision and encourage them and engage them.”

“You have to… let them know you’re 1) qualified and 2) can do the job,” she said.

For Said-Jinete, that lesson came early on. She was the first woman hired at the Medley Police Department in 1984 and although she felt most of her peers accepted her, she recalls a sergeant who would ignore her when she called for him on the radio. He would pay Said-Jinete no mind and then immediately respond to male officers.He eventually warmed up to her.

“I didn’t make a big deal over it and once I got to know him, I got along great with the man,” she said. “I try to think of us all as one, as police officers. And I think that’s the mentality I’ve always had through the years.”

But even today, said Stanley, of the Lauderhill department, there are moments while she is out doing her job, and others assume a woman can’t be in charge. It’s mostly made her chuckle, she says, chalking it up to “things you get accustomed to.”

“I would go out on calls and people would automatically assume that my male subordinate was my supervisor,” said Stanley, 56, who has five other siblings who have worked in the criminal justice system. “The male subordinate would then say ‘no, she’s the boss.’”

The key to succeeding in a male-dominated field has been to just be “one of the guys” and work harder, said Said-Jinete, who originally wanted to be a lawyer, but fell in love with policing along the way.

Like Quiñones, Said-Jinete, 54, also faced remarks about being a woman police chief. She ran into a guest visiting town hall who exclaimed, “A woman police chief? Wow.” He congratulated the state’s first Latina police chief— Said-Jinete’s background is Cuban and Lebanese — and then went on his way.

Being a woman and a police chief shouldn’t be considered an “amazing feat,” says Mooney, 47.

“I don’t like to look at it as ‘Hey, you’re a female chief,’”she said, while underscoring that women do bring a different and needed perspective to the job. “I’d rather just be the chief.”

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