Like women who came before and after her, Maria D. Trajkovich faced some resistance when she was hired as a police officer.
“Did I have some bumps in the road? Oh, I had potholes — huge ones — that I fell into,” Trajkovich said. “But guess what? I recovered.”
Now with 20 years at the Lake County Sheriff’s Department, Trajkovich ran in the Democratic primary last year in hope of becoming sheriff, more than 80 years after Lillian Holley became the first and only woman to serve as Lake County’s top law officer.
Trajkovich didn’t win, but she’s glad she ran.
“When the opportunities present themselves, I think you should go for them,” Trajkovich said.
Trajkovich, along with Linda Lawson, Hammond’s first woman police officer, and Patricia Nowak, former police chief at Indiana University Northwest and Purdue University Northwest police departments, said they wish there were more women in leadership positions in law enforcement.
Roughly one in 10 of first-line supervisors in local police departments were female in 2013, according to a report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. “An estimated 3 percent of local police chiefs were female,” the report states.
Lawson was sworn in with Hammond police in 1976. Nearly two decades leader, Trajkovich joined the sheriff’s department in 1998. Nowak had 30 years of law enforcement experience before becoming chief at IUN in 2012.
“It’s important that women are at the table,” said Lawson, who retired with the rank of captain.
Despite obstacles they faced, Lawson, Trajkovich and Nowak encouraged other women to go into law enforcement. They all said they felt grateful for the positions they’ve held in a job that allowed them to serve their communities.
“I’ve had experiences that I never, ever, ever dreamed in this career. Amazing,” Lawson, who represented Hammond as a state representative after her law enforcement career ended.
Women can be just as good of a police officer as men, they said, while also bringing extra skills and experiences to the job.
“I’m a woman, and I want you to know that I’m a woman. And I’m a police officer, and you’re going to know I’m a police officer,” Trajkovich said.
Resistance
Holley became Lake County sheriff in 1933 after her husband, Sheriff Roy “Doc” Holley, was killed on the job. She was in office when bank robber John Dillinger made his escape from the Lake County Jail with a wooden gun.
Bruce Woods, director of the Lake County Historical Museum, described Holley as “feisty” and “no-nonsense.” She was also the “nicest lady” who helped restore the Old Lake Courthouse clock and supported the Old Homestead, one of Lake County’s oldest dwellings built in 1847.
“She called everybody darling,” Woods said.
Holley died in 1994 at the age of 103.
Trajkovich said she can understand why some women may have been reluctant to run for sheriff after seeing the criticism Holley faced. Holley was blamed for Dillinger’s escape, and some thought of ousting her from office.
Holley fought her critics.
“I’m not a sissy. I can take it on the chin. But I feel that I’m getting the blame for this just because I’m a woman. I can’t see where I was at fault,” Holley was quoted as saying in 1934.
Still, in 2019, Trajkovich said “we should be away ahead of that already” with women in leadership positions.
“There has been a tremendous amount of discrimination against female officers. The men are really, really hard on the women. They really are,” Lawson said.
Some women have had to take legal action, like in Lawson’s case where pressure from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and threats of cutting federal funding led to Hammond police hiring women.
Lawson said the harassment was “never ending” on the job. It ranged from her uniform to male colleagues taking credit for her work. The majority of it, however, was based on her sexuality, she said.
“There were men that I worked with who never spoke to me until they were retired and they were gone,” Lawson said.
Lawson remembered a 1975 local newspaper article with the headline, “Police wives doubtful of gal’s role in force.” In the article, Hammond officers’ wives called having women on the force “crazy insanity” and “make believe.”
“I don’t think they’re capable of handling the job as well as a man,” one woman said in the article.
Trajkovich became a police officer roughly two decades after Lawson, but she said “it was very hard.”
“After a while, I did end up with good partners where the officers saw that I did like doing what they did, and I could do what they did, and I probably did more than some of the other guys did,” Trajkovich said.
At first, it “was very intimidating” to join the sheriff’s department, she said.
“Then after a while and working with them and doing the job, I was like, wow, I can do this, too. There was no magic to it,” Trajkovich said.
‘Ready for change’
When she became a police chief, Nowak said she really didn’t think about her being a woman in that role.
“My goal is to leave it a better place than when I went into it. And I think I did,” Nowak said.
Nowak knew when she was around 8 years old that she wanted to be a police officer. When she told a teacher, he laughed, she said.
“He said, ‘Ha, ha, ha, you’ll never be a police officer.’ I was like, oh yeah? I think I will,” Nowak said.
Nowak worked at East Lansing, Mich., Police Department before she was hired to lead the police department at IUN, becoming the university’s first female police chief.
Taking on that role, Nowak said she didn’t really meet resistance and said she thinks “they were ready for change.”
“I know I benefited, and the community benefited,” Nowak said.
Lawson said not every day was tough, but there were ones when she wondered “when someone would be nice to me.”
“Not be my friend, but just say good morning, how are your kids?” Lawson said.
Not all men were difficult over the years, the women said. They had good partners, and Trajkovich even met her husband, Lt. Steven Trajkovich, at the sheriff’s department.
Lawson, Trajkovich and Nowak have worked in a variety of units in their careers: patrol, sex crimes, juvenile, narcotics, prisoner transportation, civil, property management.
They all love their job, whether it was working in a squad car or firing a gun. But they all said their biggest focus was serving their communities.
‘I can do that’
Trajkovich didn’t run for sheriff for political reasons or to get ahead, she said, but rather because it’s something she wanted to do.
“I wanted to be in that position where I could honestly help someone and make a difference in the department,” Trajkovich said.
Trajkovich said she hopes other females, of all ages, look at what she and other women have done and say, “I can do that.”
“I didn’t see a lot of women in law enforcement” when joining the department, Trajkovich said, “and that’s a big deal.”
Lawson is passionate about the history of women in law enforcement. She can list off names, dates and achievements of women who came before her. During her time as a state representative, Lawson brought resolutions honoring female officers in Indiana, which she said was an honor to do.
“I think diversity in itself, not just females, brings a lot to the table,” Nowak said.
The three said they are optimistic for more women in leadership positions in law enforcement in Northwest Indiana.
“It’s going to take somebody to be brave enough and an officer and a chief and a mayor to say this is something that we need. We need to have a female at the table. We need to have representation from the female community,” Lawson said.
Trajkovich thinks a woman will become sheriff again in Lake County.
“I hope that the female sheriff who does hold that position, I hope she does it for the right reasons because it’s in her heart and her soul and she’s there to do it for her community,” Trajkovich said.