Petite policewoman retires from Harris Co. Sheriff’s Office

Houston Chronicle—August 31st, 2010

Effie Skinner is a tiny woman, but she’s never been a shrinking violet.

Denied a police job because she was too short, the 5-foot-tall Skinner marched into the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. Her orange Afro bespeaking confidence, lips beguiling cops and cons alike with the familiar salutation, “Hey, Baby!,” Skinner quickly became a department legend.

Within months of joining then-Sheriff Jack Heard’s department in March 1975, Skinner led the successful charge to let female deputies — matrons, they were called — wear pants and sidearms rather than cumbersome regulation skirts.

Skinner, now 64 and confident as ever, retired Tuesday, ending a 35-year career as a deputy in the jail’s booking office. Behind her she leaves a legacy of professional know-how that colleagues said will inspire them for years.

More than 100 of those colleagues gathered in the department’s cafeteria Tuesday for Skinner’s grand send-off. There, amid party favors, old photos and a dozen or more helium-filled balloons, those who knew Skinner regaled one another with stories of the deputy’s early days.

“She’s a ball of fire,” Sgt. Amy Bunyard opined, drawing affirming nods from those within earshot. “She’s very knowledgeable, very professional,” added Deputy Kevin Ellis, who worked with her about 10 years.

After jokingly revoking her retirement, Sheriff Adrian Garcia observed that Skinner’s performance was “always a point of pride, a point of honor” at the department.

Skinner was only 27 when she left a secretarial job at the Houston Police Department to become a law enforcement officer. Her application at HPD was rebuffed because she stood 7 inches short of the department’s minimum height requirement for officers.

Turning to the county, which had no such rule, Skinner enrolled in the sheriff’s academy. Upon graduating, she donned the tailored knee-length skirt that female deputies were required to wear. She carried her pistol, handcuffs and other police gear in a tres chic shoulder bag.

‘Everyone loved her’
When she tried to moonlight at a local jewelry store, though, Skinner was shocked when the owner turned her down.
“Ma’am, you can’t work in that doggone skirt,” he told her. “What if you have to subdue someone? How are you going to fight when you’re trying to hold your skirt down?”

“He had a good point,” Skinner said Tuesday.

Garcia credited Skinner’s pluck in petitioning Heard with revolutionizing the department’s dress code for women. “If it weren’t for the courage of this lady,” he told the women she worked with, “you would not have moved out into full uniform.”

Garcia’s department employs 2,310 deputies, 303 of whom are women.

Sgt. Forrest McGehee recalled Skinner unflappably processing incoming prisoners. “HPD would send over two vans of 60 people and none of them were happy,” he said. “But everyone respected Effie, everyone loved her.”

Not known for reserve
When prisoners sought Skinner’s advice, her response was direct: If you’re guilty, own up to it and take your punishment. If you’re innocent, fight it out. “Some of them you could help,” she said, “and some of them you couldn’t.”

Sgt. Doug Thomas remembered the time that a supervisor, taken aback by Skinner’s ebullient greetings of “Hey, Baby!” and “Hey, Sweetie!” advised him to urge the deputy to be a bit more reserved.

“So I called her into the office,” he said, “and the first words out of her mouth were, ‘Hey, Baby! What do you need?’ ”

Skinner responded to the heartfelt testimonials with wry asides. “I’m not a handshaker, I’m a hugger,” she warned one. “I’m not a crier, but this has been a misty time,” she admitted, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “My contacts keep trying to fall out.”

By Allan Turner, Houston Chronicle