Robert, a Navy sailor just back home in San Diego from deployment, was atop a bridge threatening to jump, depressed about his failed military career and worried about possibly going to prison.
Meanwhile, Andrea Galindo was down below in a specially outfitted police van, gently coaxing him to come down.
“Thank you for your service, Robert,” she calmly told him. “Why don’t you come down and we can talk. I just want to see you and know more about you.”
Galindo was not a skilled negotiator with the San Diego Police Department, nor was her suspect on the bridge really threatening to take his life. She was one of nearly 70 women who showed up Saturday morning for a special hiring expo aimed at recruiting more women to join the ranks of San Diego’s 1,860 sworn police officers.
Saturday’s morning event was the third such expo sponsored by the police department, which in 2021 joined a nationwide initiative to eventually have women make up 30 percent of departments’ recruiting classes by 2030.
San Diego is making some progress, although it’s not quite there yet. In 2020, before the first of the expos was held, 13 percent of the recruits hired that year were women. By 2021, that percentage had risen to 16, and last year, it had grown to 23 percent, according to the police department.
Among all sworn officers, the proportion of women stands at 16.6 percent — better than the national average of 13 percent.
“So why do we have a women’s hiring expo,” Tina Williams, captain of backgrounds and recruiting for the department, told the women gathered at Police Plaza on Murphy Canyon Road. “Our journey is completely different from our male counterparts in the sense that we are different. When I go through a physical agility test, I’m 5 foot 4 and my male counterpart is over 6 feet. How we do stuff is completely different.”
Sasha Kennedy, who attended the police department hiring expo, participates in a simulated traffic stop drill while police officer Annita Reuben watches.
(Sandy Huffaker/The San Diego Union Tribune)
The expo, though, was much less about the differences that separate male and female officers and more about the diverse opportunities women can pursue, depending on their interests — from emergency negotiations to traffic investigations and community relations, Williams said.
In a departure from previous hiring expos, the police department offered scenarios where the attendees could participate in a simulated negotiation with someone threatening to jump from a bridge or learn what to be on the lookout for in what may seem like a routine traffic stop.
Camille Teasley, 29, of Ocean Beach, said she could envision herself working in the department’s canine unit or investigations. But Saturday, she said, was more about learning what options are available to young women like herself.
“I would be interested in going through the academy,” said Teasley, who currently works for the city of San Diego specializing in financial work. “I think it would be a good challenge, that’s what I would want, where every day you’d be doing something new and that would help build a lot of confidence.”
Now a full-time dental assistant, Leelahnie Tortoledo, of National City, said she’s been interested in a law enforcement career for some time and figured the expo would be ideal for “expanding my horizons.”
“I could see myself doing this, especially growing up in an area that was considered the hood, so it would be nice to go back and give back to my community,” she said. “I like the idea of helping people, seeing that a police officer is so much more than just being a police officer but a hero to some. It’s a stable future.”
Several of the department’s female officers were on hand to make presentations and answer questions. One attendee wondered whether women are treated differently as police officers.
“It’s not like what it used to be where you definitely were treated differently as a female,” said officer Torrie Albinie. “We are in a culture now that is more accepting. So we aren’t necessarily fighting the same battle but at the end of the day, what nobody respects is when you come in and try to prove something …
“As an individual, know your strengths, know your weaknesses, show up, do your job and go home. That has nothing to do with male or female.”
