Gertrude Schimmel, a trailblazing NYPD cop who became its first woman sergeant and opened the door for generations of others, died Monday of natural causes. She was 96.
Born in 1918 in the Bronx, Schimmel was the youngest of three children in a family of Jewish immigrants from Galicia.
She overcame a childhood blighted by the Great Depression and an early career hemmed in by sexism to become the NYPD’s first female sergeant — and then its first lieutenant and captain. – READ MORE
