After a three-year stint in the Army, Patricia Powell was managing her brother’s barbecue restaurant, Hecky’s in Evanston, Ill., when she got a phone call from her sister in Atlanta.
“She said I should move down here, they were hiring police officers. I said, ‘Me, a police officer?’ She said you’d be good, you’re in shape,” Powell said.
Powell, who played basketball for the Army (position: guard), was ready to move from the cold climate of Chicago and the restaurant business and try something new.
So at 35 she packed her bags, moved to Atlanta and began the process of becoming an APD officer. Some 11 years later, she was named the department’s LGBT liaison officer.