Pioneering ‘Policewoman’ Helped Open Up LAPD

In 1969, Prudence Wright walked into LAPD headquarters, young, nervous and naive. She wanted to be a cop.

She got a job, all right, but it was not in a position she had dreamed of: going after robbers or murderers.

“I would have been a good patrol officer if they would have let me,” Wright said.

Instead, she was assigned, like a handful of other female recruits, to booking female suspects, typing reports and other desk jobs. Shown to her desk, she was told: You are now officially a “policewoman.”

Before Saturday, Wright was one of five remaining officers who could still be called “policewomen,” the appropriate designation when they were sworn in. But with Wright’s retirement Saturday, after 30 years of service, there are only four policewomen left.

In her three decades of service, Wright, now 53, saw her role, and the role of other female officers, change drastically.

Badges today simply read “police officer” and female officers have the same responsibilities as their male counterparts.

When Wright was assigned to the Newton Division in the early 1970s, she primarily worked desk jobs. In 1982, Wright completed field certification at the Police Academy, which qualified her to do patrol duty. But Wright decided to forgo her original dream and chose to work in community relations in the South-Central area.

She said she realized that helping families and youths was more satisfying than chasing suspects. “I have always had a desire to help people.” she said. “It’s my drive. I thank my mom.”

When she left her native Alabama in 1965, she never imagined she would become part of the city’s “legendary ladies,” as fellow police officers call the policewomen.

African American women in law enforcement were a rarity in the 1960s, Wright recalled. When she arrived here, she took a typing job with the Los Angeles Unified School District. A few years later she met a couple of police officers who visited a district school.

“I wanted to be a black and white,” she said, referring to patrol officers who drive black and white vehicles.

She applied to the LAPD and was put on a waiting list. A few months later she got the call. She completed training for a desk job and spent her first years in the Harbor Division.

“Those were very challenging years, being a minority and a woman in the police,” she said. “But I wanted to do it.”

Her reward came when she got an opportunity to give back to her community, she said. In Newton, Wright helped residents to form block networks and to fight crime.

“I feel blessed to have worked with such wonderful people,” she said. “They have become my first family, I mean, I spent most of my day with them.”

Her colleagues said Wright’s name has become synonymous with community policing in the area, and she has won more than 70 awards to prove it.

“I don’t know what they are going to do without her,” said Newton Det. Gail Ryan, a fellow policewoman who has dedicated much of her career to researching and writing about policewomen.

Ryan will retire in a month, but said she will always remember the battles she and her female colleagues had to fight to pave the way for younger female officers.

“Thanks to our hard work, we have made the job easier for new female officers,” Ryan said. “Things did not begin improving until 10 to 15 years ago.”

Thirty years ago, there were only 97 women in a police force of about 4,700 sworn officers and they were not allowed to patrol. Today, there are about 1,700 women on a force of about 9,500, police officials said.

Wright “has been around the longest and has the biggest heart,” said Gale Burnett, a senior police service representative who worked with Wright. “There is no way I can ever fill her shoes. If I can fill where the toe goes, I can say I have done a lot.”

Wright’s supervisor, Sgt. Alexander Gomez, said Wright has helped neighborhood youths become active as Los Angeles Police Explorer Scouts, and many have gone on to become police officers.

Marco Rosales, a 25-year-old Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy, said he considers Wright his second mother. Rosales said he met Wright more than 10 years ago, when he became an Explorer in the Newton area.

“That’s why I come back every year,” he said. “She showed us the right way. I would have not become a sheriff if it wasn’t for her inspiration.”

In her final days on the job, Wright helped coordinate her favorite holiday project. Area business people donate money and food, and officers deliver the goods to area children.

She told her colleagues that she would retire as a policewoman, but not as an advocate for the area.

“Don’t make me cry,” she told her friends. “I’ll be back.”