Women in Law Enforcement: Wisconsin's Chief Tammi Larson

POLICE/Frederic PD

Chief Tammi Larson of the  Frederic (Wisconsin) Police Department was inspired to be a police officer in probably the same way a lot of 1970’s and 1980’s kids got the idea of wearing a badge for a career. She watched the heroic cops on TV. “I loved all the police shows like ‘Miami Vice,’ ‘Starsky & Hutch,’ ‘Police Woman,’ and ‘CHiPs.’ I dreamed of chasing bad guys and helping save people,” she says.

She adds that she also wanted to be a cop because she wanted to help victims, especially children. “I came from a dysfunctional childhood and wanted to help other kiddos from broken homes,” she explains.

Larson has been assigned to a variety of duties and she says she has grown with the job. Some of her proudest moments have involved steering people off the wrong road. “I walk down the street and sometimes guys come up to me and thank me for talking to them while I was taking them to jail. They tell me how that helped them change their lives.”

She says she’s also proud of the impact she has had on children who were in bad situations. “I went to a violent domestic and the little boy at that house told me he wanted to be a police officer just like me when he grew up. He’s now a state trooper.”

With 35 years of duty, Larson should be approaching the finish line for her career, but she says she still wants to keep working. She’s even serving as a reserve with a tribal police department in addition to her duties as chief. “I hear all the time, ‘Why don’t you retire, you’ve earned it?’ I say when God says I’m done then I’ll be done. Until then I want to help young officers and kiddos and my community.”