ARE WOMEN REALLY SUITABLE FOR POLICE PATROL WORK?

I hardly expect to win any friends or influence any people by what I am about to say. I’ve spent most of my adult life around police officers and I’ve come to believe that deep down in their hearts many male cops have asked themselves the politically incorrect question: Are women really suitable for police patrol work?

Is the question a reflection of ignorant, bigoted and hateful male chauvinism? No, not at all! It’s a reflection of the desire for officer survival.
　
Chase, the new NBC show, stars Kelli Giddish as an ass-kicking female U.S. Marshal. I don’t watch it because it reminds me of the 1997 movie G.I. Jane which starred Demi Moore as a female who successfully completed the U.S. Navy Seals training program. What do Chase and G.I. Jane have in common? Both are fantasies about beautiful broads who are the physical equals of the toughest of men. When some 70 percent of the trainees drop out of the extremely physical demanding Seal training program, there ain’t no woman going to become a navy seal.
　
This brings me to question the suitability of women as police patrol officers. I know that there are thousands of women working as patrol officers throughout the U.S. and most of them are doing a fine job. But the problem is that when it comes to physical confrontations with lawbreakers most women are not physically capable of controlling a bad situation. The most glaring example of this is the Rodney King case. King was originally stopped by a couple of California Highway Patrol officers, one of the partners being a woman. Because she lacked the upper body strength to help take down a combative King, she and her partner (who happened to be her husband) had to call on LAPD for help and things really went downhill from there.
　
Studies have also shown that policewomen are much more reluctant to make a nighttime traffic stop of a suspicious vehicle than are their male counterparts. That’s why you will find few women driving a patrol car by themselves during the nighttime. They are partnered up with a male officer and, to be honest about it, they are there for the female officer’s protection.
　
Because women officers will not always be able to sweet-talk some thug into coming along peacefully during an arrest, I question their suitability to serve as patrol officers. Please note that I did not say women are unsuitable for police work. Many women officers are outstanding criminal investigators. Because they lack the brawn doesn’t mean they don’t have the brains. What I question is the ability of women to do some ass-kicking when that becomes absolutely necessary. Tasering doesn’t always work and women officers cannot just shoot an unruly subject because they don’t have the physical capability of controlling him.
　
Say what? Oh shit, I’ve just been advised that some feminists and lesbians have put a fatwa out on me.
　
EDITOR’S NOTE: While I only questioned the suitability of women officers on police patrols, Centurion sent me this e-mail about women correctional officers:
　
.....female officers, to my knowledge....(there may in fact be one or two exceptions out of literally hundreds of thousands of cell extractions done over the past 20 years) were NEVER assigned to the shield, baton, or cuffing positions on extraction teams back before we used OC and other munitions. When it came time for brute force...it was always the guys...(usually the bigger guys)...who carried the load. Lots of them were injured. Lots of them had their careers shortened, while the females stayed in the office.