The city of Dallas has its first-ever female police chief and she’s a black woman.
Ulysha Renee Hall will be stepping into her new position on September 5th. The seat has been vacant since the former chief, David Brown, retired in October, amidst the controversy surrounding the handling of five police officers who were gunned down in an ambush in July.
The department was also being criticized their lack of diversity and declining morale. Women officers have increased over in recent years. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 25% of newly sworn-officers sworn in between 198 and 2008 were women. The largest recruitment of female officers were in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with 2,428 women employed.
Hall will be transferring from the Motor City, where she served as a 19-year veteran of the Detroit Police Department. There, she headed over the department’s Neighborhood Policing Bureau. Leading others runs in her blood. Her father was a police officer who was gunned down in the line of duty when she was just 6 months-old. She is also a graduate of Grambling University and a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
She’ll be joining other Royal Woman in the city’s law enforcement elite such as district attorney of Dallas County, Faith Johnson, who calls Hall’s appointing “exciting”.
In a statement released , Hall says she’s looking forward to building on the successes of the past,preserving community trust and ensuring the safety of the officers and the entire Dallas community.
She’s also looking something the city of Dallas doesn’t see too often from their police chiefs, a woman’s touch. Hall says as women, we add a “special something that truly calms the savage beast”
We’re wishing this Royal Woman all the best in her new venture!
