First female patrol officer for Denver Police Department honored for Women's History Month: "Its not just a job"
The Denver Police Museum is honoring one of its own as part of International Women's History Month and 50 years after they started allowing women on patrol.
"I wanted to be there, bottom line," Marsha Kiddoo said.
At 5-foot-4 and a quarter, Kidoo says her first hurdle was getting into the police academy, nearly missing the height requirement.
"You had to be 5-foot-4," she recalled.
Today, she's 83 years old and years into retirement, but she is still very much a cop.
"It was what I wanted to do, and I made that very clear that's what I'm going to do," Kidoo said.
In 1968, when she joined the academy, there were very few women signing up and none of them ended up out on the streets, patrolling.
Former Denver Police Chief Jim Collier says it was a different time.
"It was with a lot of skepticism that female officers were put on the street and there was a lot of 'Oh, I don't know if this is going to work' or 'Not you guys,' and ... policewomen I've worked with ... put a stop to that, put an end to it," he said.
Kidoo was one of five women put on the streets for the first time in 1972 and she excelled by landing her one of the toughest assignments.
"Colfax (Avenue) used to be one rough place and I worked Colfax on the north side from Broadway all the way out to Colorado Boulevard. I walked the beat by myself and, yes, I carried a fairly large gun,' she said.
"Everything we did, we did together," said Tony Ventura, her patrol partner for 20 years.
He and dozens of others that worked with her at some point during her career showed up to honor her work and her role as a trailblazer, including current Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas.
"Six-inch coal python swinging from the hip, she swaggered up to the individual. It was clear to me -- and it was clear to them -- that Officer Kiddo meant business," said Chief Thomas, remembering seeing her on a stop along Colfax.
"It's a big deal for me that people would come and honor me like this," Kiddoo said.
She recognizes things have changed since her time on patrol, but her message to any woman or man thinking about a job in law enforcement today is to remember, it's a calling.
"If that's what you want to do you have to realize that it is not just a job," she said.
