Officer Elizabeth Skala, a six-year vet who worked the beat in Center City before joining the Public Affairs Unit earlier this year is back on the job.
Skala went off the week before Labor Day, resting before the Sept. 5 debut of her daughter, Grace. She labored more than 12 hours, with no overtime, until the little one arrived at 7 pounds, 3 ounces.
It wasn’t that long ago when women weren’t allowed to walk the beat.
In the 1970s, a plan to hire the first female beat officers led to the creation of a protest group called, Police Wives and Interested Citizens for Action.
Among concerns were whether a woman could carry a 200-pound man from a burning building and, as one policeman’s wife observed at a meeting: “What’s going to happen after he’s spent all night with this woman who’s all doozied up and then he comes home and we won’t have any makeup on?”
More than 30 years later … women make up 25 percent of the force with the No. 2 position held by Deputy Commissioner Patricia Giorgio-Fox, the highest rank ever held by a woman.
It’s unclear how many of those women are pistol-packing mamas or how many can carry a 200-pound man from a burning building. It’s also unclear how many of the men can actually carry a 200-pound man from a burning building.