Photo via: KTLA 5
Long-time Los Angeles Police Department member, Regina Scott, has just made history by becoming the department’s first African-American woman to be promoted to Deputy Chief, reports NBC Los Angeles.
Scott, who is an army veteran, joined the LAPD in July 1987 as the Commander Officer of Information Technology Bureau. At that time, she says, the opportunity for any woman, not just a woman of color, to rise through the ranks of the LAPD were pretty much nonexistent. But as time went on, she explains to ABC7, “I started to see the women promoted to lieutenant, captain and then commander and deputy chief.”
With her new promotion, Scott will oversee Los Angeles’s Central Bureau, which the LAPD describes as one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse areas in the city.
“This promotion is more than just me, it is for those who paved the road before me, and those who dare to dream big,” Scott said during her honoring ceremony at the California African American Museum. “I am ready to help build trust and help bridge the gap between the police and communities we serve.”
She added: “We have a right to be concerned. Before I became a cop, I was a Black woman and a mother. I will always have that, and I will never forget where I came from.”
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti also praised Scott for her historical promotion and explained what her presence will mean to the residents of Los Angeles.
“We had our first African American woman 99 years ago join this force,” ABC7 reports him saying. “But to have the first two-star assistant chief, deputy chief, who will be able to take the most important bureau in the heart of our city and lead it. That means every Black girl in town can look up and say I could be her.”