CASSELBERRY, Fla. – The Casselberry Police Department represents the changing face of law enforcement – the department now has a staff comprised of 31% women – nearly one in three.
That’s compared to the national average of 12%, and only 3% women in positions of police leadership, according to the NYU School of Law Policing Project.
The project’s research shows women use less force and less excessive force, are named in fewer complaints and lawsuits, and see better outcomes for crime victims, especially in sexual assault cases.
Of the 55 positions at the Casselberry Police Department, 17 are staffed by women, several of them in supervisory roles, like Sgt. Megan Colburn-Munn, who has a master’s degree in Criminology.
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“I’m very proud. This department is being open-minded,” Colburn-Munn said. “Because law enforcement can be closed-minded in the past.”
And the old days weren’t that long ago.
Detective Carrie Mims, one of two female detectives at the Casselberry Police Department, said as recent as 10 years ago citizens would “grumble and groan” if she walked up.
[INSIDER EXTRA: Hear more from Sgt. Megan Colburn-Munn and Detective Carrie Mims]
“[They’d say] ‘I don’t want to deal with this, where’s the real cops,’ kind of thing,” Mims said. “But that feels so far away from where things are now. I haven’t heard anything like that and I don’t expect to.”
Together, Mims and her detectives have solved some of the biggest cases in the city, including one that went cold for years after a teenager was found dead in a car at a Casselberry park on New Years Day in 2018.
“It took some DNA from the car door handle,” Mims said. “The suspect opened the car door and left something there for us.” DNA on car door led to arrest in teen’s fatal shooting at Casselberry park, police say.
Officer Rachal Armour is the department’s Community Relations Specialist.
“We have our own way of seeing things and bringing light to certain ways of how we do things,” Armour said.
Armour is organizing a fishing tournament for underserved children and other opportunities for the department to connect with the community and show the citizens they serve who they are and how they’re getting results just like their male counterparts.
“What you bring to the table isn’t about what gender you are, it’s about how strong you are, how much you’re going to do for this agency and your own career,” Armour said. “It just empowers me to be stronger and work harder in my career to show just because we could be tiny doesn’t mean we’re not mighty!”
The Casselberry Police Department said it’ll keep going – the goal is to make 50% of the staff women to accurately represent the community it serves and to promote more women into supervisory roles.
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