Woman who was once highest ranking female officer with Philadelphia police remembered as trailblazer
Dorothy Cousins was the first woman in the history of the Philadelphia Police Department to serve as a staff inspector.
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- One woman patrolled her way into Philadelphia history.
Dorothy Cousins was once the city's highest-ranking woman in the Philadelphia Police Department.
She recently passed, but her family says her 28 years on the force helped pave the path for women in blue.
"In the early days, I didn't realize it, but as she started moving up the ladder, I did," said Patricia Cousins-Smith about her mother.
"Mom didn't brag about herself, so I didn't always get it from her, as I did from other family members," Smith added.
Smith says to call her mother a trailblazer would be an understatement.
Before dying at 93 from lung disease, Cousins spent decades serving her community as a director of security for the Philadelphia Housing Authority and as the chief of county detectives for the District Attorney's office.
In the early 1980s, she was the first woman in the history of the Philadelphia Police Department to serve as a staff inspector.
Cousins was also one of the first women to be admitted to the police academy, and among the few Black women to join the force in 1955.
Smith says she opened the door for other women to hold leadership roles, not just in the department, but also in the city.
"Nowadays, you see a female commissioner of police and you think that's nothing unusual. They have to realize how that came about, and my children and my grandchildren know that it took a lot of others like their grandmother and great-grandmother to get those people into those positions," Smith said.
On top of all her achievements, Cousins was also a world traveler. She visited all seven continents, even seeing Antarctica in her late 80s.
