Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office names first female patrol lieutenant in 20 years

With a new lieutenant’s badge pinned to the cloth of her forest green Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office uniform, Andy Salas looked out to the crowded conference room at the department’s Ventura Avenue headquarters on the morning of Thursday, Jan. 24, reflecting back on her 33 years in law enforcement.

The day was an important milestone for her career, she said, with the morning’s promotional ceremony coming a little more than a week after she began her new elevated post within the law enforcement division. The celebration also marked a momentous day for the department, with Salas’s promotion making her the first woman to earn the lieutenant’s title within the law enforcement branch of the department in almost 20 years, said Misti Harris, a Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman.

“It means that I’m competent at my job,” Salas, 50, said of promotion. “I would hope after over the course of 33 years of wearing men’s pants and men’s boots, that I have been effective, competent, honest and that I’ve done good public service.”

The last woman to earn the lieutenant’s ranking within the department’s patrol branch was Jan McKinley, who was promoted to the rank in 1999, according to Harris. Linda Savoy became the highest-ranked woman in the department’s history in 2007 when she was promoted to assistant sheriff of the county’s detention division, which encompasses the county’s jail, Harris said.

On Thursday morning, Salas’ family, including her mother, two brothers and husband, were among the 150 people who gathered at the Sheriff’s Office for the pinning celebration, where three other employees were also publicly commended on their recent promotions.

Her new post will place her as a watch commander for the patrol division, where she’ll oversee a number of programs, including one that trains new deputies hired into the department, she said.

“It was just a good time for me to move to the next level,” Salas said. “I was competent as a sergeant and hopefully that competency will play well into my next role.”

Increasing diversity within the department’s ranks has been a central goal for Sheriff Mark Essick, who was sworn in earlier this month as the leader of the county’s largest law enforcement agency. He called Salas’ promotion a well-earned appointment and a step in attracting more female recruits to the department, who might see Salas’ career as proof that success and advancement within the department for female officers is achievable.

“To be able to promote women, to promote anybody, we have to get them in the door,” Essick said.

A report published in September from the county’s law enforcement oversight office found leadership within the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office was exclusively male. Among the 10 lieutenants overseeing the department’s patrol operations, half were white, four were Latino and one was black, the report said.

Of the 216 deputies working on patrol, and the sergeants who supervise them, 93 percent were male and almost 87 percent were white. Both rates were disproportionately high when compared to the county’s general population, the report showed.

The Santa Rosa Police Department has never employed a female lieutenant, Capt. Rainer Navarro said, though they currently staff three sergeants who are women.

As for Salas, she believes her ability to work well with her peers, handle responsibilities and learn from her mistakes contributed to her moving up the department’s ranks, not her gender, she said.

Several former and current workers who attended the promotional ceremony, including Lt. Mike Raasch, who was also celebrating his promotion to lieutenant that morning, strongly agreed.

He and Salas started at the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office on the same day back in 1996, though they had known each other previously when he worked at the Sausalito Police Department and she at the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. Their careers followed a parallel course, he said, both rising to sergeant on the same day in 2007 alongside Essick.

“Andy is a hard working person,” Raasch said. “She’s very knowledgeable and very well-respected here.”

Salas was raised in Santa Rosa and graduated from El Molino High School 1986. She got her start in law enforcement while working as a paid cadet at the Santa Rosa Junior College Campus Police Department that same year.

Her more recent assignments at the Sheriff’s Office include working as a sergeant at the Guerneville substation from 2013 to 2017 and a field training supervisor for the past five years.