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South Fayette hires first female police officer

By Jacob Calvin Meyer staff Writer jmeyer@thealmanac.Net 4 min read
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As a Port Authority police officer, Sawyer Gray said she would sometimes ride the buses.

A moment that stuck out to her during her time working there was something a 5-year-old girl said to her mother one day on the bus.

“Mommy, I didn’t know girls could be police officers,” Gray recalled the young girl saying.

Gray, 26, said she’s proud to be an example for young girls, and she’s hoping to do the same in South Fayette. Gray was hired as a South Fayette police officer in July, becoming the first female officer in the township’s history.

“I liked that for that person she now had that whole other mindset of what she could do with her future,” Gray said of that young girl on the bus. “It’s a big responsibility to girls in the community. If they want to be police officers, I will be what they look up to. I think I can handle that and be a good role model.”

The township also hired two other officers, Zachary Wynn and Roman Williams, to bring the total number of officers in the township to 18.

While police Chief John Phoennik said he’s excited to employ the first female officer in township history, he also said that’s not why she was hired.

“She was the best one on the list. It didn’t matter to me if she was a female or a male,” Phoennik said. “We didn’t hire her because we wanted to hire a female. We hired the best candidates that were on our list and she was one of them. It is the icing on the cake for me that she’s a female.”

Gray grew up in Sneads Ferry, N.C.. She attended Brevard College in North Carolina and UNC-Pembroke after high school. She got a part-time job in Midland Borough in Beaver County after she completed the police academy. She’s worked the last two and a half years for Port Authority police.

Gray said she knew she wanted to be a police officer when 9/11 happened. Exactly a year earlier, Gray, who was 8 years old at the time, went to New York City with her aunt and uncle, who lived in New Jersey.

“I feel like when that happened, I always knew,” Gray said. “I grew up in a military town, so that affected the community big time. My friends, all were military and police. I was always around it, so it always felt like the right thing to do.”

During her time at Port Authority police, Gray learned that she wanted to be a suburban police officer rather than a city officer.

“I am not a city girl,” Gray said. “I grew up in a small town, went to college in a small town and then I moved to Pittsburgh. Driving into the city every day, dealing with the city traffic and all of that, I don’t like it. I was looking for suburb, something more rural.”

Gray said that while all police officers are under pressure, she believes there’s an added pressure for her being the first female officer in township history.

“If I make myself look bad, I’m the first person in my position that the town will come into contact with,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to step in as the first female and make females look bad. I take it very seriously.”

Phoennik said Gray’s presence on the force will be helpful in pushing the department’s community-oriented policing efforts.

“With the way the township is going, and with community-oriented policing being important to me, I think a female officer could help enhance that,” he said. “I think South Fayette is primed for a female officer here. She has the potential to be a rock star in this community.”

Meanwhile, Phoennik said Officer James Jeffrey will be moved to a full-time investigative role. Phoennik said last September that he was looking to move an officer into a full-time investigative role to “enhance” the rate at which investigations are closed.

“Investigations can’t always be solved in an hour’s time,” he said. “You need to make follow up calls and extra work. That’s what he’s going to be doing. There are even some cold cases he’s going to be working on, too.”

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