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Gulf War Veteran Julie Kinsella Enjoys the Challenges of Being a Police Officer
The only reason Fairfield police officer Julie Kinsella hasn't "free-fallen" from a plane is that it's too expensive. "You should try everything once," she says with a great smile on her heart-shaped face. And she sure does. She's a daredevil.
The first time she ever flew was to go to Airborne School as part of her military education. The third time in a plane she jumped out. Petite Julie leans forward in her blue office chair and says, "In the military the parachute is deployed for you. When you free-fall you pull your own cord. I want to do that--to free-fall, I mean--but it's so expensive. You have to do it privately."
We're in her office at the Fairfield Law Center. It's pretty plain. No flowers. Kinsella's well-trained, lean muscles show under blue jeans and a white cotton T-shirt. No fat there. "I love to keep slim and trim," she says. In the hiring process for her physical agility test she had to do a one-minute push-up test. They offered to let her do them on her knees, knowing that most women don't have enough strength to do them lying flat. But she did them like the guys. This woman is not afraid of her own strength.
However, with her small figure and open blue-gray eyes, she spreads a pacifying, natural air around her. Nothing aggressive. And it helps a lot that she doesn't wear her uniform at the moment. The only signs of ornamentation are the small gold rings in her ears. "I believe my strength lies in communication," she says, "and I love to help people." She makes a point of this. "A lot of people just see the badge, the gun, and the uniform," she says. "They don't see us as people. I do everything I can to make them see me as a person." Kinsella's relaxed demeanor must be a great asset for the Fairfield Law Center.
Even if she seems undaunted, one might well wonder how she tackles the fact that she's not only a cop, but a female cop. "Oh, you know, I'm not a physical threat to anybody. Actually, my physical presence is an advantage. And chivalry is not dead, you know." She laughs. "If you arrest a man, and don't cuff him, he'll open the door for you."
Kinsella's policy is always to treat people with respect. And she expects respect back. "Obviously, every officer has strengths and weaknesses," she says. "My personal skills are probably higher than normal. If I arrest somebody I used to say, 'We can do it the hard way or the easy way.' " When it can't be done in a nice way--if Kinsella thinks the person might be violent, or if there is risk that he will run--she'll handcuff the offender for her own security. But if they work with her, she'll work with them.
In other words: In most cases it would be nice to be arrested by police officer Julie Kinsella. During her almost five years in the Fairfield Law Center, she has arrested several thousand people. The majority of them were guys. A lot of people hate cops, and see red if it's a woman. "If I earned a dollar for every four-letter word I've been exposed to, I would be a very rich lady by now," she says. But she takes it surprisingly lightly. "In a juvenile party, for example, there might be up to 10 to 15 arrests. A lot of people don't pay their fines, and we have to arrest them. Or they don't show up in court. Arrests are not always dramatic."
But isn't it detrimental to a person's psychology to have to relate to people in a negative way so often? "I have a job to do and I do it," Kinsella says. "It's just like any other job. Some things aren't so nice. Others are. You learn to cope with it. We vent our experiences with each other here at the station."
Once, for example, she had to arrest a guy who was in the hospital for a suicidal overdose of drugs and refused to take any treatment. The man was a threat to himself and the medical staff. He claimed to have AIDS. "When we arrived at the hospital, we tried talking to him, negotiating for half an hour. But he was fighting. He bit one of the officer's hands and tore his rubber gloves so the officer got exposed to his blood. With something like hepatitis or AIDS this is a scary experience. Within 15 minutes after we had restrained him he died. It was traumatic." The waiting process was awful, says Kinsella. To wait for the blood tests. To handle the spouse in the relationship.
She hates to see kids destroy themselves with alcohol or drugs. But the worst is abuse, she feels. Abuse of children, the elderly, or women. One person out of four knows somebody who has had personal exposure to sexual abuse. And many victims request to talk to a woman. The interrogation process is tough. "It's hard to put them through the memory again, the physical examination, to identify the perpetrator," says Kinsella. "And maybe the lawyer wants to have a deposition. All the people involved, having to stand up in court and tell what happened. There are people who have committed suicide because they haven't dealt with that."
Kinsella attended a military college from 1983-87, and holds a Bachelor of Science, with a major in criminal justice and a minor in military science. After five years as a communications officer, working on tactical satellites, she left the military as a captain in 1992.
She was stationed in Korea two times. First at Camp Humphrey, and then in 1991 she came back to Camp Casey in Toungdchoen. "That was a real-world mission," she says. "Not a pretend. No rehearsal. Five out of seven months you're out there in the field living in a tent. In August it was ungodly hot with 100 percent humidity. Later, we were up in high altitudes, on the side of a mountain. It was like sleeping in a tent in January here. It was cold. We had a small gas oven, but with 25 people in the tent it was not enough. When we took down the tent we had to beat off the wall of ice that had formed outside." Smile again. "But we got to see some of the Olympics in Seoul. That was great."
And she was there during Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf. Five months in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq. She's a tough lady. "It was terrible to see Saddam Hussein's soldiers fleeing in panic. Hundreds, thousands, trying to get out of Kuwait City, fleeing north to Iraq. High heaps of car wrecks piled up on the side of the road."
In the south of Iraq, in the town where the piece treaty was signed, people were extremely hungry. She and her soldiers gave bread and water to one lady walking with a little five-year-old boy, and they received it like a five-course meal. "They didn't have food. They didn't have water. People were so hungry."
Although Kinsella is unafraid, she couldn't go anywhere alone in Saudi Arabia. A small, fair-haired, female captain, alone and without a veil, is practically considered fair game. Often Saudi men told her subordinates that they would like to buy her. She would talk directly to the Saudi men who supplied the military, but they answered back to her soldiers.
In some situations, however, a disadvantage can turn out to be an advantage. "I could get us anything, being a fair-haired woman," Kinsella says. "For example, we went bunker-junking for trophies. Things like Kuwaiti or Iraqi uniforms, you know, masks, sabers, or bayonets. Then we traded them for showers, toilets, or other things we needed. When you haven't had a shower for four days, you stink and you're hot, you start to trade. In one place there was this great ice cream. But it was difficult to get. I just wanted one, but the guy gave me a whole case. Others didn't get anything. It got to be the big joke: If you want something, just send Julie."
With arms folded comfortably on her chest, she rocks in her office chair. This woman enjoys her life. She's strong. Between her and the guys in the office "it's like no difference." That's all. She just does her job.
She's a training officer and decides who's teaching what to whom, and when. "I'm in charge of the whole program. And since knowledge is power, I'd rather teach them all I know, because my life might be dependent on them." The guys tease her about her mixing the military and police phonetic alphabet, though. "You know, they say things like, 'Is it R as in Romeo, or R as in Robert?'"
And with stoic calm she says that she's 33, that she hasn't married yet, and that it happens when it happens. "But if you're single, it stinks in Fairfield," she adds.
She reads a lot, and her last novel was Extreme Measures by Michael Palmer. On the job they trade books and practice "sweat equity." In other words, they help each other do repairs. "Not long ago we put siding on a house belonging to one of my colleagues. Now, after I bought a new house recently, the guys helped me to fix the roof." Not without pride she explains how she's finished up the electricity, laid down ceramic tiles on the bathroom floor, textured the walls, painted, and sanded and resealed the hardwood floor. Almost like a handyman. Sweat equity is a good principle, she thinks. She's leaning comfortably back in her chair. Her new white jogging shoes float lightly on the metal frame of the office chair. "You know, I like things nice. But it's a money issue, and it's okay to do one thing at a time. My kitchen was pink, though. I hated it, and painted it white and blue. A beautiful ivy blue."
So she hates pink. When she puts her mind to it she can cook, but it's not often. Her favorite meal is chicken and homemade ice cream with lots of vanilla. She loves vanilla. Actually, she prefers to eat from her mother's pans. Often all the guys on the station come and eat at her mother's place. Her mother is a great cook.
We talk about her tomboy qualities. Her favorite sports are basketball, softball, and tennis. And she runs. "I don't like to be fat," she says. Does this woman ever do anything like sew, for example? "No." Big laugh. "But I water ski, downhill ski, and scuba dive," she says. Is there any sport she doesn't do? With a playful expression in her eyes she says, "I'm not a very good ballerina."
