Busting the Brass Ceiling: How a Heroic Female Cop Changed the Face of Policing

Blake, Fanchon; Gross, Linden

ISBN 10: 0999858483 / ISBN 13: 9780999858486

Published by Incubation Press, 2020

About this Item

Supports Goodwill of Silicon Valley job training programs. The cover and pages are in very good condition! The cover and any other included accessories are also in very good condition showing some minor use. The spine is straight, there are no rips tears or creases on the cover or the pages.

Seller Inventory # GWSVV.0999858483.VG

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Busting the Brass Ceiling: How a Heroic Female Cop Changed the Face of Policing
• Publisher: Incubation Press
• Publication Date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0999858483
• ISBN 13: 9780999858486
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: very_good

About this title

Synopsis

Fanchon dreamed of becoming a top cop. She knew she was going places. She had already made a mark in the Army. Why not try a career in law enforcement? In 1948, she joined the LAPD, sure her efforts and talent would be rewarded. Instead, despite long hours and high achievement ratings, she—like all the other women—was not allowed to promote. It got worse from there.

Over the years, the tenacious police officer tried to challenge the increasingly discriminatory agenda from within. Then she went to the press. When those efforts failed to effect change, she realized there was one last way to try and prevent the LAPD from tacitly becoming an all-white boy’s club. Someone would need to take them to court, and that someone might as well be her.

Would a lawsuit be the tipping point in establishing equality within the police force? And once Fanchon sued the department, what repercussions would she face for breaking its codes of silence and loyalty?

About the Author

FANCHON BLAKE's sex discrimination class action suit against the LAPD propelled her to national attention. "This tough ex-cop and former Army major is the reason why there are now female lieutenants and captains on the Los Angeles Police Department--and why there may eventually be female commanders, deputy chiefs, and possibly even a woman chief of police," read a 1990 Los Angeles Times article, one of dozens written about this trailblazer. Part of that prediction has already come true. As of the publication of this book in 2020, the LAPD's Command Staff included fourteen female captains, three female commanders, a female deputy chief, and a female assistant chief (the department's second-highest position).

Blake, who died in 2015 at age 93, would have been thrilled.

LINDEN GROSS is a bestselling writer. She ghostwrote Julia "Butterfly" Hill's New York Times bestseller The Legacy of Luna (HarperCollins, 2000) and helped Kathryn and Craig Hall with their national bestseller, A Perfect Score: The Art, Soul, and Business of a 21st-Century Winery (Center Street, 2016).

Gross has authored, co-authored, or ghostwritten an additional eight books, including Ms. Cahill for Congress (Ballantine, 2008), the stirring tale of public school teacher Tierney Cahill, who on a dare from her class ran for U.S. Congress, and Surviving a Stalker: Everything You Need to Know to Keep Yourself Safe (Incubation Press, 2013), a revised edition of To Have Or To Harm (Grand Central Publishing, 1994), the first book written about the stalking of ordinary people.

Gross also functions as a writing coach and an editor, helping other people to write their memoirs, nonfiction books and novels, several of which have gone on to become bestsellers.