FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2019 The Boston Globe Metro B
at an array of mug shots.
It was love at first perp.
Their son, Richie Ridlon,
said his father was supportive
of his mother’s quixotic ambi-
tion to break the gender barrier
at the Boston Police Depart-
ment, though he worried that
some of the Neanderthals on
the job wouldn’t be as welcom-
ing.
He was right.
When Barbara Ridlon and
10 other women entered the
police academy in 1972, they
weren’t cheered like the US
women’s national soccer team.
“She and my father told me
there was broken glass on the
conveyor belts in the Opera-
tions unit when the women
were training there, knives ‘ac-
cidentally’ left in the seats of
the cruisers they were driving,
dead rats in their lockers,” her
son told me.
He pulled out some old
newspaper clippings which
chronicled the groundbreaking
class of women, referred to as
“Hogan’s Heroines,” after Cap-
tain William Hogan, the acade-
my commander. He shook his
head at the patronizing tone of
the coverage, in which trail-
blazing women were dismissed
as “the gals” or, his favorite
headline, “Wives of officers go-
ing into the academy.”
uCULLEN
Continued from Page B
The 11 women were an
eclectic bunch. One of them,
Beverly Veseleny, had been a
Playboy bunny. Another, Sheila
Kaplan, was a certified genius,
a member of MENSA.
They all had to put up with a
lot of bigoted, patronizing balo-
ney. Upon graduation, they
were assigned uniforms that
featured skirts. After Barbara
Ridlon and Sheila Kaplan
chased some perp up a fire es-
cape in Roxbury, they com-
plained and the department re-
lented, letting them wear pants.
Barbara Ridlon was as-
signed to District 2 in Roxbury
for years, a calming presence in
a sea of daily chaos. She suf-
fered nerve damage to her left
arm in 1976 while wrestling
with a 300-pound emotionally
disturbed woman. She suffered
more nerve damage, to her
face, when some jerk threw a
rock through her cruiser win-
dow. But she kept showing up,
because she loved being a cop.
When Richie Ridlon was a
young boy, his mother was
working undercover, plain-
clothes, doing surveillance in a
restaurant, keeping tabs on
known criminals. She brought
Richie along, to enhance her
cover, having him take note of
who was coming and going.
“I guess I was born to be a
detective,” Richie said.
He eventually became one,with the Massachusetts State
Police, and his mother beamed
as he was pinned with his
badge by Kathy O’Toole, one of
Barbara Ridlon’s proteges who
followed her onto the job, ris-
ing to become the first woman
to lead the Boston Police De-
partment, after serving as lead-
er of the Massachusetts State
Police.
“As I rose through the ranks,
Barbara was always very en-
couraging and supportive,”
Kathy O’Toole told me. “For
me,shealsodemonstratedthat
it was possible to balance ca-
reer and family.”
Like Walter Fahey, the BPD
legend whose opinion of female
officers changed so dramatical-
ly because of her, Barbara Rid-
lon didn’t want to retire so
much as she had to. She aged
out in 2001.
Barbara Ridlon died on Sat-
urday. She was 83.
They dispatched Barbara
Ridlon from this world on
Thursday, at St. Theresa’s in
West Roxbury, with all the re-
spect and dignity that she
earned and deserved.
She was, after all, more than
a trailblazer, role model, a stan-
dard bearer, and great mother.
She was all cop.Kevin Cullen is a Globe
columnist. He can be reached at
[email protected].Awomanwhowas‘allcop’
BOSTON GLOBE FILE PHOTO
Barbara Ridlon was among the first group of women to graduate from the Boston Police
Academy, in 1972. At right, Mayor Kevin White spoke to the graduates, including Ridlon
(second from right).
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