Police Women of Broward County
TLC’s New Reality Show
Julie Bower, Andrea Penoyer, Ana Murillo, and Shelunda Cooper are the four detectives of the Broward Sheriff’s that are the focus of this new reality series. They might not be as large as their male counterparts, but they can handle the job just as well.
Size Doesn't Matter
When they discussed their show at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour, Ana Murillo addressed the topic of their size. “There’s 50 thousand volts here,” she said while pointing to her Taser. “That’s a lot of bulk. And this little noise can scare a lot of people.”
Shelunda Cooper added, “Besides the fact that we carry a gun and a Taser, with this job I’m going home at the end of the day. … I may look small, but I train for it.”
“You’ve got to remember when someone walks in a room and you got a cop who is 6’5” and 300 pounds, he looks intimidating,” explains Andrea Penoyer. “So we have to act intimidating. We have to be very, very serious and let people know we’re not playing around.”
Penoyer also says, “[The bad guys] can give me all they want. Their point is to try to break us down, and it frustrates them more when they can’t affect us.”
All of these women are secure in the fact that they know they can handle themselves and their job and have the respect of the others on the department, both male and female.
From Barbies to Bullets
These women all came into law enforcement in various ways. “As a little girl, the Barbies were there,” says Murillo, “but I preferred to play with the football, the basketball, the soccer [ball and] the baseball. I play softball and it was easier to transition from an athlete to a detective.”
Cooper had a different experience. “For me, I was not one of those individuals where I dreamed of growing up and always wanted to be a police officer. I always respected the law, but did I want to work for the law? Absolutely not. I went to college, and when I met my husband, he was in law enforcement. And he kind of encouraged me to go into the field because eventually I wanted to go into the crime scene aspect of it, and I was also a tomboy. So it was easy for me to transition from going from a little tomboy, what I used to be, into law enforcement.”
“I was raised by my dad,” explains Penoyer, “so there are [were] no boundaries. There is no female job, and there is no male job. I just did what I wanted to do.”
And Bower admits, “I never knew that I wanted to be a cop because I had a kid at 19, and then I basically – [in my] mid-30s, got into this. I always wanted to help people. … Now I can’t see myself doing anything else because I love it. It’s great.”
For Penoyer, the show is her way of showing the viewers the excitement of her job. “Nothing ever surprises me anymore because I’ve seen a lot. But I’m hoping that anybody who watches is going to have the feeling how I felt the very first day.”
“I get excited when I go to work,” claims Murillo. “I have a three-year-old now. It’s harder to be a mom than to be a cop.”
Talking with these women it is evident that they enjoy what they do and they are good at it. As soon as they go to work, they are no-nonsense women and dedicated detectives. This is what this new series will show – the women and their jobs, along with their personalities and how they handle the situations.
Police Women of Broward County airs Thursdays on TLC.
The Police Women of Broward County
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