By Marilyn May
Police Officer Donna Lee Baldwin is sworn in by Chief of Police Timothy Flaherty. In 1994 she was the first woman officer to gain the rank of patrol sergeant. Photo courtesy of Baldwin.
“You’re going to be what?!”
That was the response from Donna Lee Baldwin’s mother when she told her she was going to apply for a policewoman’s job that was being advertised in the newspaper. Mom thought her daughter already had a good job as a licensed practical nurse at Milford Hospital.
Still, Baldwin was considering applying for a part-time job, never thinking she would work with the police department for the next 21 years. Or that she would be patrolling Devon on foot at midnight, or working undercover on a state regional task force, or that she would eventually be made Milford’s first woman patrol sergeant.
She had some wonderful role models. The way was pioneered by Sgt. Annette Fosdick, whose career spanned from 1946 to 1966; Mildred Moe, 1947 to 1971; and Denise McGrath in the early 1970s, who worked in the youth bureau of the detective division. They worked in plain clothes and had powers of arrest. These women worked mostly on investigations involving women and children.
Another bright star was Tracey Mooney, 1994-2014, who retired from Milford PD as deputy chief and went on to become chief of police at the University of New Haven.
In 1974, Baldwin started out as a “special” patrol officer. She had passed all the written and oral exams, physical agility tests and had gone through the Milford Police Department’s training. This meant she was able to work part time.
One day she got a call that there was a job open that night for a walking beat in Devon from midnight to 8 a.m. She would do it. There was only one drawback, she told the officer on the phone: she didn’t have a uniform. No problem, she was told. She could find a pile of uniforms at headquarters under a staircase where at the time retired officers threw their old uniforms.
She went through the pile and found herself an outfit.
“I felt proud because I knew what it took to get where I was,” she said.
Most of the first-year men and women walked solo beats in all weather. Baldwin had a 15-minute break to warm up or dry off when a patrol car was sent to meet her. It was always at the corner of Bridgeport and Naugatuck avenues. The dome light had to be on when she was in the car. Headquarters had to be told when she got in the car and when she left. And the police car was always parked facing downtown Milford in case a code 3 alerted the driver to turn on his siren and emergency lights and get to a certain location as soon as possible. Later in the morning, Baldwin had a half-hour meal break and ended up visiting just about every diner in Milford.
One night Baldwin was walking a beat in downtown Milford making sure all the doors were locked, including the back doors. She heard glass break behind a building. She walked toward the sound but could see that no windows or doors had been smashed. Then there was the sound of breaking glass again.
Walking past a nearby dumpster, she said, “Up pops Bandit, a very large raccoon.” She still laughs about the incident. Bandit is her favorite name for racoons, but this Bandit did not end up with a police record.
“Fifty years ago, thought patterns were very different,” Baldwin said. When she applied to be a full-time officer, she was told, “’You can’t do that because you’re a girl.’”
No lady, back in the day, walked the streets alone at night or was called to break up barroom fights.
“But I have all the requirements,” Baldwin had countered. “It’s not fair. Let me try.” She was not – and is not – one to be easily discouraged.
“Okay,” the officer had demurred. “You can try.”
You can guess the rest. She passed all the tests that were the same for men and women, and their paychecks were the same, as well. By 1977, she was able to work full time.
“Every time I looked in a mirror to make sure my collar and pins and badges were straight, I always thought of all the women officers who came before me,” she said.
How did the public react?
“The public generally saw the uniform first and then saw I was a female. Their first reaction was surprise,” she said, and then their next reactions were “mixed.” Some favorable, some not so much.
In time, Baldwin and fellow trainee Pat Gustafson became friends, confidantes and “partners in crime,” applying for higher positions at the same time. And their timing was good. The city received a federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act grant in 1976. This enabled the hiring of more officers. Gustafson was hired to work in communications/dispatch, and under the same grant Baldwin was hired as a full-time police officer. Both had to go through accredited training at the state police academy in Meriden. They were then sworn in by Chief William Bull.
Baldwin has a quick laugh and a take-charge attitude that served her well. She said that in questioning things she never cited “discrimination,” but always questioned issues of “fairness.”
Sometimes she figured out subtle ways to police the streets once she got a patrol car. She drove past the former Office Bar on Daniel Street and saw 15 motorcycles parked on the sidewalk. That was not permitted, but it wasn’t worth causing a ruckus with all those bikers. All she did was drive by very slowly and shine a spotlight on each bike. Then off she went for a coffee break. Later, she drove past the bar again and said she found no bikes on the sidewalk. Mission accomplished.
After being a police officer for a few years, one night she happened to tell her mother that the state police had asked to “borrow” her to do undercover work. The dinner plate her mother was drying shattered all over the kitchen floor.
“Oh! And are you going to do it?” her mom asked.
As you can guess, Baldwin did undercover work for the state for a year and a half.
When she got married to retired detective Robert Hall, her colleagues continued to call her Officer Baldwin because that’s the way they had known her for years.
She was born and raised in Milford. “My family’s name is on that bridge down there,” she said, motioning to the Memorial Bridge where the names of Milford’s founders are carved in granite.
Having a woman on the force was helpful more than once. One day she and some paramedics were called to a house where a woman was having a heart attack.
“She was an old Italian lady, and she was adamant that she would not let a man touch her,” Baldwin recalled.
The paramedics backed out while she took off her police hat, sat down and calmly had a chat with the woman. Then she asked if she could open the woman’s blouse and put a stethoscope on her chest. The lady timidly agreed, and Baldwin placed the scope and listened. That’s when she told the lady that one of the male paramedics just outdoors was a “personal friend” of hers, and he was “the very best at checking heart rates.” The woman relented, so Baldwin held the stethoscope, and the paramedic was allowed to listen. The woman was immediately taken to the hospital. She recovered somewhat and lived a few months longer.
Many years later Baldwin was working at the headquarters front desk when a woman came in to ask a question about something. Instead she just stood there, not moving, not saying anything, just staring at Baldwin for a long time. Finally, the woman said, “You came on a call for my grandmother who was having a heart attack. She did not want the guys to come in. You talked with her and ‘played a game’ to get a paramedic in and check on her. You saved my grandmother’s life. You gave her more life. I was a little girl at the time. It was the first time I ever saw a woman officer.” And then she told Baldwin, “I just want to thank you.”
Baldwin was promoted to patrol sergeant in 1994 by then-Chief Thomas Flaherty and put in charge of supervising officers who went on calls. She retired in 1998.
Looking back on her career, she said, “I loved being a cop, and I loved being a patrol sergeant.”
There are currently 28 female officers of various ranks serving in all divisions of the police department.
Marilyn May is a lifelong resident of Milford and is on the board of the Milford Historical Society.