6 - JACKSON HOLE WOMAN, Jackson Hole News&Guide, Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Female officers use
‘verbal judo’ Cops say knowing how to talk to people is as important as physical fitness. By Sarah Reese
A
fter helping one of her male co-workers handcuff a man who had passed out on someone else’s porch, it was Jackson Police Patrolwoman Stephanie Zaroban’s job to take him to jail. “You sound beautiful,” the man told her as he sat in the backseat of her cruiser.
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Jackson Police Patrolwomen Jamie Colvin and Stephanie Zaroban try to talk things out with troublemakers but will get physical, if necessary. “Sometimes we get the respect, but if not, we have to go in tough,” Colvin said.
“Well, thank you,” Zaroban told the man, who was arrested on a public intoxication charge after a homeowner called police in mid-July to report the unwanted visitor. The exchange is just one example of what the Jackson Police Department’s patrolwomen face on a daily basis. Jackson is a good place to be a female police officer, said
Zaroban, Patrolwoman Jamie Colvin and patrol Sgt. Michelle Weber. While they occasionally deal with men who have a problem with a woman in blue, being female can sometimes work to their advantage, they said. “It can go both ways,” Weber said. “Either guys will like women and be OK to talk to you, or they hate women and they won’t talk to you. Everyone has a different
personality.” Colvin calls the communication tactics police use “verbal judo.” “We have to use it a lot more,” she said of female officers. “You’ve got to talk to people in a certain way to get them to do what you want them to do without them knowing.” Colvin has been in confrontations at her previous police job
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