Tuesday, April 21, 1998 | 9:53 a.m.
Women law enforcement officers from around the country are meeting in Las Vegas to discuss how to get more women onto police forces and into the higher ranking positions.
The third-annual conference of the National Center for Women and Policing, ongoing through through Thursday at Bally's hotel-casino, kicked off its first seminar Monday with comments from Penny Harrington, who was the first woman in a major U.S. city to be promoted to chief of police.
Harrington, a retired Portland (Oregon) Police Department chief and now the director of the National Center for Women and Policing with offices in Washington and Los Angeles, was introduced by Metro Police Sgt. Debra Gauthier, regional representative for the national organization.
Gauthier told a group of about 500 officers about her recent demotion from lieutenant to sergeant and how she was also bypassed for promotion to captain. The Civil Service Board last month upheld Metro's decision to demote Gauthier after claims that a male sergeant, who covertly taped conversations, was retaliated against for filing a complaint against her.
"I knew I was in trouble when two commanders told me they were freezing the captain's list," Gauthier said, noting that she had placed No. 1 on the list.
Harrington said, "Debra's story is one I hear repeatedly. It's one of the reasons we have a center for women in policing."
The center "rose out of the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles," Harrington said, referring to the 1991 videotaped beating by LAPD officers, some of whom were later convicted for civil rights violations in federal court.
"There was only one officer who tried to stop the beating, a female state police officer," Harrington said.
She said the center is trying to get women into law enforcement nationwide.
"Does that mean we're men haters?," she said. "No. But something is very wrong when there are not women in decision-making positions."
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