DETROIT – Before 1974, female Detroit police officers were not assigned to regular beat patrols.
Retired DPD Sergeant Shirley Joyner joined the department that year.
“We women thought we were going into the Women’s Division or Youth Department and would be in plain clothes. They decided our class was going to be the first women to get in uniform and get in the scout car,” said Retired DPD Sergeant Shirley Joyner.
Instead, she and other female officers in her class were assigned to patrol the streets.
Joyner, who was assigned to the midnight shift, became the first woman to do so.
“I thought it was unfair,” Joyner said. “But it was OK. That was the assignment. And when you got the assignment, you did what they told you to do.”
She admits she was nervous.
“God help me. Be with me. Protect me,” she prayed.
Joyner said her partner was very welcoming, and the night turned out to be uneventful.
Her father still had his worries, tailing her on her beat in his truck.
“I had to tell him, ‘Daddy, I’m a grown woman with a gun in a police car, stop following me,’” Joyner said.
She grew up on Detroit’s East Side near a police precinct.
Her dreams of becoming a police officer began looking out her window.
“I used to see the police coming and going, and I thought, ‘This is cool. I think I would like to do this job,’” Joyner said.
The job came with its challenges, compounded by her gender and race.
“We had supervisors that didn’t want us there because we were females, and they thought we couldn’t do the job,” Joyner said.
Joyner spent 34 years at the Detroit Police Department, retiring in 2008.
Her daughter, Kyra Joyner, reached out to Local 4 to share her story.
“When I was younger, I just knew my mom was the first woman on patrol. It was just a statement. I didn’t know what it meant,” she said.
Most of the photos and mementos from Joyner’s law enforcement career were destroyed in a house fire.
One reason Kyra recorded an interview with her mother on camera was to ensure her mother’s history wasn’t forgotten.
“I am glad they are proud of me because I want them to be,” Joyner said.
The Detroit Police Department has not been able to locate any records identifying the first female officer to patrol the city.
Women make up 26 percent of the department, according to a DPD spokesperson.
Joyner said she served as a mentor to many women in the department throughout her career.
She said she’s proud to have made history, but it was not on her mind at the time.
“I never really thought about it because all of this was the first for us all,” Joyner said, referencing her class of female officers.