By Jeff Reinitz
Waterloo Courier
WATERLOO, Iowa — The first female officer to reach the ranks of sergeant and lieutenant at the Waterloo Police Department is retiring.
Ann Meyer began her career in 1977 when law enforcement still was a male-dominated field.
Her first night on the job included a tavern fight, a car chase and a shooting death on Randall Street.
More than three decades later, she still remembers delivering the “death notification” to three of the victim’s relatives, including his 3-year-old daughter.
“She asked me if her daddy had a bad owie.” Meyer said. “That got to me,”
Those who worked with Meyer said it’s her compassion that made her stand out as an officer. It also prodded them to take stock of their own feelings in a profession where it’s easy to become cynical.
Phil Baskerville recalled working a motorcycle accident with Meyer when he was a deputy for the Black Hawk County Sheriff’s Office.
The motorcycle driver was bleeding heavily and making gurgling noises, and Baskerville was sure the man was about to die. He mentally shut that part down and went about directing traffic waiting for the ambulance to arrive.
Meyer took a different approach.
“Ann got down on her knees and grabbed hold of this guy’s hand and just with force, compassion, gentleness, told this guy he’s OK. He’s going to make it,” Baskerville said.
The motorcyclist lived. Baskerville said Meyer’s encouragement had a role in his survival.
“She made a difference in my life that day,” Baskerville said.
Meyer’s sense of compassion carried over as she worked on the police department’s Critical Incident Debriefing Team, which allows officers to talk about tragedies they encounter on the job, and the Crisis Intervention Team, which handles suicide threats and mental health problems.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Meyers was a member of the Iowa Critical Incident Stress Management Network, which traveled to New York to counsel police and rescue workers who responded to the World Trade Center collapse.
Her more recent assignment has been as a lieutenant in the police department’s training unit. She oversaw the renovation of the shooting range.
Born and raised in Cedar Falls, Meyer studied criminal justice at then Hawkeye Institute of Technology.
While in school, she worked as a security guard at Waterloo Industries. After first starting the job, employees from the paint area hid a dead rat in her desk to try to get a reaction.
Upon finding the rodent, she merely flung it in their direction and shook off her hands.
“They just tested me to see what I was made of,” Meyer said. “If I let them know they got to me, they would continue.”
After two failed attempts to join the Cedar Falls force, she was hired by the Waterloo department in 1977.
Meyer became the department’s first female sergeant in 1989, when she was promoted by then-Chief Roger Shook.
The next promotion took more of a fight. After being passed up despite top scores on her tests, Meyer filed a complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission. She dropped the matter when Thomas Jennings was named chief and gave her her lieutenant’s bars in 2001.
Meyer put in for captain’s openings twice but wasn’t promoted.
She said there has been progress in the fight against gender inequality in law enforcement, but there still is room for improvement.
“I think it’s gotten better, but I don’t think it’s where it should be yet,” she said.
Now an instructor at Hawkeye Community College, Meyer counsels women studying law enforcement that they will have to work twice as hard to be accepted and that they need to have thick skin.
She also advises all new officers to not lose their humanity.
Copyright 2009 Waterloo Courier