Meet the first black woman commander of an NYPD elite highway unit

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The NYPD’s new leader of the pack may not be a biker, but the 17-year police veteran is blazing trails. Deputy Inspector LaShonda Dyce is the new commanding officer of one of the department’s four highway units – the first African-American woman to hold the post in the agency’s 175 year history. “Somebody has to do the job,” Dyce said. “If a man can do it why can’t an African-American woman do it, the same job, if not even better?” Dyce, 38, was admittedly a little apprehensive when she was offered the gig. “I knew that this was a male-dominated unit, to say the very least,” Dyce explained. “But I thought about it and I said, ‘Why not?’ Other women need to see we can have a voice in a male-dominated unit.” Dyce turned heads in her highway uniform at her first TrafficStat meeting at One Police Plaza, to discuss accidents and injuries. “A lot of people were just stunned to see me,” she said. “For the mere fact I’m an African-American woman, I’m a deputy inspector and I have on the highway uniform. And I’m talking about people who work for the NYPD.” No one may be more stunned than Dyce, who was not a fan of police when she was a kid. Read the full story The post Meet the first black woman commander of an NYPD elite highway unit appeared first on American Police Beat Magazine.