Since St. Louis County is taking this week to celebrate 50 years since women officers were first allowed to patrol by themselves, KMOX decided to look back on some of the women police officers in our lives.
When KMOX's Maria Keena was young, her mother was a police officer in the city. Standing at just 5'2" and being one of the three women on the force, she was small but mighty. Maria joined "The Show" to share some memories of her mom's time on the force.
"She got into the police department because she wanted to protect people. That was her main reason," Maria said. "She was a single mom with me and my grandmother, and wanted to be able to protect us and herself. And so it was very rare. There were only two other police officers when she was like, looking at this and contemplating going into the police department."
Those women ended up becoming like mentors to Maria's mom. Maria said as a kid, she grew up with KMOX radio next to her bed and a police scanner.
"It was pretty scary to have your mom be a police officer because I would hear the calls that she would go on at night, and I'd hear her respond back. So it was pretty terrifying for me," she said. "And when I got a little bit older, I got my cousin and I said, 'Look, we gotta go check this out where mom is tonight,' when she'd be on, you know, maybe a standoff situation. And all of a sudden, my older cousin and I would drive up, my mom would turn around and look at me and say, 'What are you doing here?'"
Maria wanted to become a police officer herself, but her mom discouraged her. She said her mom had tons of stories — some great, and some terrible.
"One story in particular, she had a partner who was in homicide. They had just gotten a pizza before they got the call," Maria said. "And she went, they went on the call. They finished it up and homicide came on the scene. They left, and her partner was scarfing down the pizza and mom was like, 'How can you be eating at a time like this? You know, after what we saw.'"
"So I know she saw a lot. I'm very proud of her though," Maria continued. "I don't want to start crying but she just wanted to take care of people. And she was a good police officer and a fair police officer."
Hear more from KMOX's Maria Keena looking back at her mother's career as a St. Louis City police officer:
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