Routine Search of Purse Cuts Short Policewoman’s Bid for a Better ’86

A Santa Monica policewoman who gained notoriety--along with the nickname “Calamity Jane”-- when she was beaten up, hacked at with a butcher knife, run over, shot at and crushed in a high-speed chase as a rookie in 1985 had vowed to make 1986 a better year.

She didn’t quite make it. With little more than a week to go to make good on her pledge, Anita McKeown, 25, ran into trouble again. This time the luckless officer slashed her hand on a razor blade during a routine search of a purse that belonged to an indigent woman who police were taking to a hotel.

McKeown, who had to repeat her rookie year because she spent so much of it recuperating, required 32 stitches at Santa Monica Hospital to repair this latest injury. The officer was due to return to work this week.

“She had finished probation and was doing great,” mused Santa Monica Police Sgt. Bruce Cline. “Unfortunately, she hit another streak of bad luck.”

McKeown, who spent all but two of her first 12 months as a probationary officer hospitalized, in casts, nursing bruises or just plain out of action, finished up her second try as a rookie in August.

And the second time around was considerably less dramatic than the first.

Beginning with a rattlesnake bite and a dislocated shoulder at the Police Academy, her first year never really got back on track.

Once out of the academy, she broke a finger and hurt her back when she tried to wrestle a drunk driver to the ground.

Six weeks later, a man she was questioning for being a nuisance pulled a butcher knife and stabbed her. A bulletproof vest saved her life, but her hand was badly cut. At the same time, a second man put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired. But a blow to the head knocked her to the ground and out of active duty again.

It was during this time that the Calamity Jane label started to stick and McKeown became something of a legend in her department. Eight days after returning to work after the butcher knife incident, McKeown was placing flares around a freeway accident when a drunk driver careened into her and broke her ankle.

After another six weeks off and 23 days back without an injury, the rookie was fired on by passengers she had pulled off the roadway because of a broken tailgate. Two bullets whizzed past her head.

Six weeks after the shooting incident, McKeown pulled over a car for a traffic violation and found it was stolen. A high-speed chase followed, and both cars ended up against a retaining wall. Recovery from those injuries took weeks.