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ASHBEL S. GREEN
The Oregonian





Acting Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer has joined the growing ranks of women leading major U.S. police departments.

Five of the 50 largest departments --Detroit, Boston, San Francisco, Milwaukee and Portland --are headed by women. All five women became chief since 2003.

"What really did it more than anything else was the push toward community policing," said Penny Harrington, who became the first woman to lead a major U.S. police agency when she took over the Portland Police Bureau in 1985. Harrington is now a consultant in Morro Bay, Calif.

Community policing, rather than focusing on arrest counts, emphasizes working with citizens to find long-term solutions to crime.

"That's the type of policing women do naturally," Harrington said.

Margaret Moore, director of the National Center for Women & Policing, said female police chiefs tend to bring a different style of leadership.

"On the whole they're doing well," Moore said. "They try to be more inclusive and work with community groups."

Sizer holds the title of chief temporarily. On Tuesday, Mayor Tom Potter elevated Sizer from a precinct command into the chief's office after placing Chief Derrick Foxworth on paid administrative leave. The city is investigating allegations of misconduct leveled by a female desk clerk with whom Foxworth had a relationship several years ago.

Whether Sizer keeps the job permanently won't be clear until after the investigation is completed. But if the mayor wants to see how other women have fared in the high-pressure job of police chief in a major city, he'll have several examples.

Detroit

When Ella Bully-Cummings took over the Detroit job in November 2003, she inherited a department struggling under federal oversight of its use of force and the condition of its jails.

Her predecessor, who was unpopular with the troops because of his tough disciplinary sanctions, resigned less than two years into the job after being caught with a loaded gun in his bag at an airport.

Bully-Cummings, who rose through the ranks after joining the force in 1977, proposed major layoffs in the face of budget cuts. In addition, the city's homicide rate has grown to about one a day.

But she also agreed to have police videotape interrogations of murder suspects as part of a proposed settlement of a lawsuit by a man who was cleared by DNA evidence after 17 years in prison.

And after a 25 percent jump in juvenile crime in 2005, she pledged to begin enforcing a little-known law that allows fines and jail terms for parents whose children repeatedly break the law.

San Francisco

Heather Fong joined the San Francisco Police Department the same year as Bully-Cummings started in Detroit.

And like Bully-Cummings, Fong took the job in the wake of a scandal --accusations of a cover-up of a drunken off-duty police brawl.

After being appointed acting chief in January 2004, she won the permanent job a few months later.

Fong streamlined the department's hierarchy and won plaudits for her planning. But her city's homicide rate also has risen.

And late last year, she faced a scandal involving officers who made a video depicting an officer running over a homeless woman and an officer pulling over a female motorist and ogling her.

Fong publicly described the skits in the video as "shameful and despicable."

Boston

Like the other women chiefs, Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole started as a patrol officer in the 1970s. But she worked in a number of different law enforcement positions and capacities in the following 25 years, including a stint with a commission to reform the police in Northern Ireland.

O'Toole won the job in February 2004 over several inside candidates. She is described as having a hands-off style that gives her time to serve as the department's public ambassador, meeting frequently with businesses and community groups.

She overhauled the department's fingerprint lab, created a regional intelligence center and reformed the witness identification procedures to protect against wrongful convictions.

But diversity has increased only slightly since she became chief, and a statewide advocacy group for minority law enforcement officers gave her a vote of "no confidence" last year.

In addition, the homicide rate in Boston surged.

Milwaukee

Nannette Hegerty was one of the first women to join the Milwaukee Police Department in 1976. She rose to captain before becoming U.S. marshal in the Eastern District of Wisconsin in 1994.

Hegerty was appointed chief in November 2003. She brought back the gang unit, reached out to unions and overhauled the discipline system.

Last year, she punished more than a dozen officers --firing several --after the off-duty beating of a man.

And crime has dropped on her watch.

Ashbel "Tony" Green: 503-221-8202; tonygreen@news.oregonian.com

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