For Women in Blue, a Grim Measure of Their Growing Role and Risks

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In the early 1980s, the New York City subways were forbidding, with robbers lurking in graffiti-covered cars. Very few women were on patrol, but Officer Irma Lozada took one of the most dangerous jobs: She hid her badge and draped fake gold chains around her neck, courting robbers to come after her in some of the most desperate parts of Brooklyn.

It was on one of these plainclothes assignments in 1984 when something went terribly wrong: Officer Lozada chased a suspect, got separated from her partner and was killed after the suspect wrested her service revolver from her and shot her twice.

She became the first female officer killed in New York City history. So jolted was the police force by her death that, in the aftermath, some officers spoke of women being better off reassigned to office jobs, several people recalled. – READ MORE

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