The Rookie: A Day in the Life of Chicago Policewoman
Being armed with only two years of social work at Loyola University and the older sister of nine brothers, Toni started her first day in 1938 as a Chicago Policewoman. There were only a handful of women on the force at that time, and the next 35 years proved to be a most troubled time in history. This is a story of that first day as told to me by my mother, Toni Quinn.
Madeleine picked up her assignments for the day from the desk sergeant. Her immediate job was to transfer a prisoner from the 1st District lockup to the downtown federal building. A drug addict with a habit was often taken to the federal lockup where medication and even drugs were given to alleviate withdrawals. Addicts preferred to be taken there rather than suffer in the city jail. When finally, my companion was ready, she ordered a police wagon to transport us.
What looked like a black delivery truck had a small window with iron bars in the back, answered her call for a wagon. The interior had two slim boards on the sides for seats. A glass peephole about nine by twelve inches had sliding glass panels that could be opened for conversations to the driver. Madeleine squeezed in between the driver and his partner in the front cab. She objected vehemently, “I won’t be locked up in that booby trap.” I was startled the first time I took my place with the prisoner in the back and the driver locked us in the wagon with no handles on the inside. I felt a surge of panic when I looked around and saw no possible means of escape. Over the years, countless times would I sit fighting terror bordering on panic, in that stifling hot or shivering cold black box, called the Paddy Wagon; locked in and fearful of an accident!
We picked up Rita De Long, the drug addict at the women’s lockup, and I trailed behind to observe. Otto Schultz was heavy-set and sturdy in contrast to his partner Walter Slater, a small under-sized officer. They were the two uniformed policemen permanently assigned days to the wagon. Otto Rumbee, the cop on the left of the prisoner was always several feet in advance, but Walter, the second cop stayed close on her right. This established a guard on each side of Rita. Then they began to walk aimlessly, sometimes on one side of the prisoner and sometimes on the other side. It seemed to me that very little attention was given to the prisoner, often with a wide space of four or five feet between them. I had assumed that handcuffs would be used in transporting a prisoner – I was wrong.
Rita captured my interest; I had never been close to a drug addict. The young woman’s record stated that she was twenty years of age but she looked older. Dark circles bordered her eyes and an expression of pain contorted her pale face. Deep furrows lined the space between her eyes. I overheard the matron at the women’s Lockup say, “Get her over there quick. She’s going to be mighty sick any minute now.” My first witnessing of an addict ‘in withdrawal’ was in the County Hospital and the depth of the sickness that addicts experienced appalled me. The patient was strapped down to the bed so that she could not harm herself. All the stories of Dante’s Inferno could not equal the tortures that she went through. I sat beside her for my eight-hour shift because she was a witness and therefore, prisoner of the court.
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