Office Pam Engle treating a victim of mass murder Priscilla Ford on Virginia Street -Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1980

VERMILLION-ENGLE VS CHIEF JAMES PARKER
by Jim Gibbs

In December of 1976, it was announced that two women jailers had won a sex discrimination battle with the Reno Police Department. The Nevada Equal Rights Commission ordered Chief James Parker to make Pam Engle and Dian Vermillion regular police officers. It also ordered the women be paid a difference between what they earned since May 1973 and what they would have earned as police officers.

Parker said the city attorney's office was preparing an appeal to the commission decision. He declined comment on the merits of the case. The women were hired in July 1972 as jailers, a rank less than police officer. During the appeal process, Chief Parker refused to follow the orders of the commission.

"I didn't even fill out an application to work in the Mrs. Engle said when interviewed by the news media. "They told me policewomen were going to become police officers and that I'd work in the jail until the new classification. I'm still in the jail she said. She had worked as a radio dispatcher at the Sparks Police Department and gave up the job, believing she would be hired as a regular Reno police officer.

Ms. Vermillion quit the Reno department in September 1975. She told commission hearing officer Patrick J. Fitzgibbons the reason was that she was not promoted to police officer. Ms. Vermillion still wants to be a police officer and said, "I'm very pleased about the decision." For the past year before the ruling, she had been employed in Sparks at Lake's Crossing for the Mentally Disordered Offender, a division of the Nevada Human Resources Department.

The women had taken examinations and were placed on an eligibility list from which police officers were promoted or hired. Fitzgibbons ruled the two attained one of the first three positions on the list in May and again in October 1973 because of hiring or disqualifications of those ahead of them.

Mrs. Eagle had testified to "vague threats" by former Assistant Chief Bev Waller. He said she might lose her job if she "made waves" because of her probationary status, she told the commission. Fitzgibbons said when the women were one and two on the list on May 1973, Chief of Police Parker gave the Reno Civil Service Commission a confidential memorandum requesting the present eligibility list be terminated as he intended to not hire from it.

Mrs. Engle and Ms. Vermillion were discriminated against because of their sex, Fitzgibbons ruled. If they are hired and promoted to the rank of police officer, the amount of back pay to be paid must be figured out. The department's payroll clerk said Mrs. Engle currently earns $517 biweekly as a jailer. The starting pay for police officer now is $445 but top pay is $604.

When asked about the case Mrs. Engle said, "I feel women have an important role they can play. They've never given us a chance. There's so much more we could do if they'd give us an opportunity. In the jail, there's no chance for advancement."

Asked if she believes women officers can perform any duties men officers can, she replied, "Darn near anything."

Officer Engle also said, many men believe women can't "wrestle drunks." But, she added, “Police work is 80 percent service and not that much physical force.” She also stated, “I know all the drunks from the jail. I represent their mother image. With a little good salesmanship, you don't have to fight”

Mrs. Engle is 5 feet 8 and weighs 138 pounds. She said, "I'm taller than half the men." Last year, she qualified as a master in pistol shooting. She has some 20 credits in law enforcement courses at Western Nevada Community College.

CHIEF PARKER LOSES SEX DISCRIMINATION APPEAL
After years of legal wrangling, under orders from Washoe District Judge Peter Breen, the City of Reno gave two former women jailers a total of $14,100 in back pay in ruling against the Reno Police Department for not promoting them to the rank of police officer.

After hearing and ruling upon the appeal made by the City of Reno of a decision made by the Nevada Equal Rights Commission, Judge Breen approved the amount suggested by Reno after the city was ordered to promote them and compensate them for lost pay. Judge Breen also ruled the women do not have to serve the usual probationary period in their new rank.

One of the women, Pam Engle, had continued to work as a jailer after the city removed their names from a police officer eligibility list in 1973. The other, Dian Vermillion, quit in September 1976 and went to work for the state at Lake's Crossing mental facility.

On Oct. 5, 1977, Judge Breen ruled the city must promote them and re-hire Vermillion. He said they had been victims of sex discrimination, an allegation still denied by Police Chief James Parker.

Without naming Chief Parker, Judge Breen said, "Someone in authority had clearly penciled a numerical order of eligible names from an eligibility list skipping those names which are female. The city attorney's office advised the City of Reno that further appeals would likely result in the same opinion by the Nevada Supreme Court.

YOU BET RED RIDER
"You bet, Red Rider. I didn't work all this time for nothing." That was the reply of Pam Engle when asked if she would accept the court-ordered promotion from jailer to police officer in the Reno Police Department.

With that, Officer Engle spent her first shift on patrol on the graveyard shift. She rode with a training officer. She said the biggest incident of the uneventful shift was taking custody of a drunk.

Vermillion told the city that she had given the state notice of her resignation and intended to return to the Police Department.

The Chief said that the two women would attend the next police academy which was planned in February 1978. Only one would make it.

The City of Reno paid Vermillion $11,000, the difference between what she would have earned as a police office and what she earned at Lake's Crossing mental facility. It paid Engle $3,100, the difference between jailer's and police officer's pay.

Parker Continues to Offer Unequal Treatment to Women
Dian Vermillion resigned from her position at Lake's Crossing mental facility and took the court ordered position as a police officer with the Reno Police Department. She lasted two days. Her resignation has overtones of continued discrimination on the part of Chief James Parker who said Dian Vermillion was too poor a shot with a pistol.

After pressure and obvious criticism for not being able to qualify with a handgun, Parker announced that Dian Vermillion had resigned once again.

Parker said she telephoned to say "it was not her bag." He also said, “No new officer is put out on the street until he or she qualifies with a service revolver.” That may be true, but typically, new hires are sent to the Police Academy where they are instructed in shooting and learn to “qualify”. Shooting is not part of the pre-qualification to apply for the position with the Reno Police Department.

Case in point: In 1974, upon graduation from the 7th Northern Nevada Reno Police Academy, Officer Jake Wiskerchen who had been elected Class President spoke of the rigors of the new "stress academy" they had just completed. Wiskerchen admitted being a "poor shot" until the academy. He said, "They turned me into an expert shot. They trained them all to be expert shots. I'm confident now." That opportunity to train to qualify was obviously never offered to Vermillion by Chief Parker

Perhaps delivered as poetic justice, before the month of December in which Vermillion resigned was out, Chief of Police James Parker would suffer a heart attack on New Year's Eve. Parker would survive the ordeal, but when he appeared at the police station for the first time 25 days later in January, he would be 17 pounds lighter and scheduled to do physical rehab three days a week for the next 13 weeks.

The academy in which Pam Engle finally was allowed to attend, and the academy that by all rights, should have been the platform for Dian Vermillion to learn to shoot, would last 16 weeks ending June 16th 1978. Chief of Police James Parker would never make an appearance before the officers attending that academy, not even at their graduation ceremony.

The very young Officer Chris Ybarra would be assigned to a training officer to begin her next step in becoming a full fledge police officer working the streets of Reno, but in November or December of 1977 just as the courts were forcing equality upon the Reno Police Department, she would be assigned to limited duty, not because of sex discrimination, but because she was pregnant.

Another woman that may have benefitted from Engle's legal action was Dorothy Williams. Hired by the Reno Police Department in 1968, she subsequently took the test for patrolman — there is no rank of patrol person. Like others, She fell into Chief Parker's trap of Policewoman 1 and 2. She worked in a variety of positions, but never on the street alone assigned to a beat.

Officer Williams was transferred during a pregnancy to the community services division, where she remained. Dorothy Williams believed she had two strikes against her in her law enforcement career: She is black and she is female.

Williams was assigned to the juvenile section like other women had been assigned there in the past, but detective is really a rank, one which is reached through competitive examinations. After Chief Parker lost his "sex discrimination" case, Williams was allowed to test for detective. She came out number 1 on the promotional list. Prior to her promotion to detective, Williams had been sharing rape investigations with Officer Carolyn Cation. The Reno Police administration believed a woman in many circumstances could question rape victims more delicately than a male officer.

Her duties would be about the same as before was included routine juvenile cases but could also include anything else Williams deemed necessary. Dorothy Williams was Reno first black policewoman and the first to officially be classified as a detective.

In 1977, in addition of Officer Engle, the department had one woman police officer in the intelligence section, one woman detective and five women jailers.

Chris Ybarra would determine that her ambition to be a police officer was second behind that of being a mother. She would resign from the department in May 1978 about the time of the birth of her first child and never return to the Reno Police Department.

FIRST WOMAN ON PATROL ON AN EQUAL LEVEL WITH MALE OFFICERS
After graduating from the 10th Northern Nevada Police Academy on June 16th 1978, Officer Pam Engle was assigned to a field training officer. She would successfully complete that portion of the required training and be assigned to patrol, in uniform with equal responsibility with her male counterparts.

Officer Engle would remain in patrol until late August 1979. She would be appointed as the Department's community services officer. However, she didn’t stay very long in that position. In February 1980 she was transferred back to patrol. Neither Chief Parker or Officer Engle gave a reason for the transfer after only 5 months as the community services officer. Engle did say that she would be happier back on my Honda. She was referring to the Honda trail bikes used to patrol the downtown Reno area.

NARROW ESCAPE OF THE MASS MURDERER PRISCILLA FORD
In an interesting but sad highlight in her career, Office Engle would be patrolling Virginia Street on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1980 when, while standing on the sidewalk, she had to step out of the path of the careening 1974 Lincoln driven by a woman about to become a mass killer. Priscilla Ford narrowly missed Engle as she plowed into people on her sick mission of revenge. Ford killed 6 people and injured 23. Officer Engle witnessed the melee, was the first to report the incident to dispatch and quickly attended to injured victims until medical assistance could take over.

There can be no doubt that the career and legal action taken by Pam Engle, changed the playing field for women hoping for a career in law enforcement in Reno Nevada. She gets credit for being the first woman in the history of the Reno Police Department to work the streets of Reno as a police officer equally with men.
 enroll through the TMCC was abandoned.