An open house last spring to recruit women to the Lawrence Police Department was successful in at least one way.

Lawrence Police Officer Leslie Stumpff takes a report from Marty Jo Brave Bull on a stolen Playstation 2. Stumpff became interested in joining the Lawrence Police Department after attending a recruitment drive aimed at gaining more female officers. She took the theft report Tuesday in North Lawrence.

Leslie Stumpff, who came to the meeting to learn more about the job, is now a uniformed patrol officer for the department. She said last year’s event — in which three female LPD officers talked about their jobs and answered questions — helped her realize she could build a career here.

“Actually getting to sit down and listen to three women talk about their experiences was reassuring,” said Stumpff, who grew up in Eudora and previously worked as a probation officer in Wyandotte County.

Next week, the department will try to recruit more officers like Stumpff with another “Women in Law Enforcement” career night and open house. The event is from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. June 3 at the department’s Investigations and Training Center, 4820 W. 15th St.

Roughly 5 percent of the department’s officers, eight out of a force of 138, are women. Two are sergeants, one is a detective and the rest are patrol officers.

Sgt. Catherine Born, who’s been on the force for 28 years, will be one of the speakers at the event. In her early years as an officer, she was a single mother raising two young children. She said the department was supportive.

“This is a very family-oriented group that we work with,” Born said. “I still don’t think that women realize that it’s a job they can do.”

The KU Public Safety Office has no women officers on a force of 29.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office has 14 women, including two lieutenants, out of 75 commissioned officers.

One of those lieutenants, Kathy Tate, was a detective several years ago when a student from Eudora High School interviewed her and wrote about her for a classroom assignment. The student was Leslie Stumpff.

Lawrence Police Department