McHenry County now has three women chiefs of police

Three women now leading police departments in McHenry County might be unique in the state, Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police Executive Director Kenny Winslow said.

As the organization does not track by gender, Winslow said he was unsure whether any other county has as many women in the role.

Women are “in the minority, but more and more of our female officers are adding to our ranks,” Winslow said.

Juanita Gumble was appointed police chief in Hebron beginning Feb. 1. She joins a sorority of women that include Mary Frake at Lake in the Hills and Laura King at the McHenry County Conservation District.

While their ranks may be rare for women, “what we need to drive home is we are highly competent and motivated law enforcement officers. We just happen to be female,” Frake said.

All three women came up through different departments and with differing backgrounds. Frake has spent her entire 29-year law enforcement career at Lake in the Hills and was the first officer to ever need maternity leave there, she said.

Gumble started in law enforcement as a dispatcher in Island Lake when she was 24. Now, she is just a few classes short of the law degree that got her into policing to begin with.

We are highly competent and motivated law enforcement officers. We just happen to be female.

—  Lake in the Hills Police Chief Mary Frake

King was 20 years old when she entered the police academy for the city of McHenry and could not yet legally keep her service gun.

“They issued my partner a duty weapon” until she turned 21, King said. After her time in McHenry and as the McHenry County State’s Attorney Office’s chief investigator, King was named the conservation district chief in 2019.

What they do have in common is a personal desire to help people who are experiencing a bad time in their lives.

“My personality helps a lot,” Gumble said. “It has kept me out of harm’s way. I understand and communicate very well and can empathize with someone being arrested and what they are feeling.”

She grew up near Union, raised by a single father and her grandmother. Her son was six years old when someone told her she’d make a good dispatcher because she could “pay attention to multiple things at once,” Gumble said. That dispatching role was what got her into the profession.

King went to college and received a general studies associate’s degree. Even with a father who was a police officer, she still hadn’t decided if law enforcement was where she wanted to be and looked at other possible careers.

“I wanted to do something to make a difference and put something good into the world,” but the other careers considered didn’t seem to fit. Then, McHenry was hiring officers. King applied and got the job.

When growing up in Cook County, Frake had a brother-in-law who was police officer and role model to her. She appreciated how he and his fellow officers could “help people through hard times. It motivated me to serve,” Frake said.

She was testing with departments everywhere back in the 1994 when she started, Frake said. With other departments seeing 300 applicants for one posting, she decided to focus on McHenry County where Lake in the Hills hired her as a patrol officer.

Both King and Frake said they had other women within their departments through the years, including some with higher ranks.

Gumble, who worked double overnight shifts throughout her policing career, said she never worked with other women. When she worked court security at the McHenry County courthouse, there were a few others, but none she interacted with regularly.

A report published in May 2021 by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority report that 10 to 13% of the country’s active-duty police officers and only 1 to 3% of chiefs are women.

When King started working in McHenry, she was the fourth female officer.

“I didn’t stay number four. ... People left and came on. I worked with as few as three and as many as six” women, King said.

Frake was the only woman in her academy class with 36 men, but the department has eight women there now, including herself.

The rarity of women on the job has never been her focus, however. “I had a priority and a job to do. I knew what I wanted to achieve. I did my job and I did it well,” Frake said.

She’d be remiss to say there haven’t been challenges as a woman and a police officer, Frake said, but she hopes her struggles have made her a better commander.

“With all of those struggles, it holds me to a higher standard. I can lessen the struggle for all of the officers, male and female, having had those struggles and having had the obstacles,” Frake said.

One of the current struggles for law enforcement across the country is hiring new officers. Frake’s department has a unit focused on recruiting because of that need.

“This is a very, very honorable profession. I would encourage people who want that service profession, male or female, to take this path. It is incredibly rewarding. It gives you the ability to take people through hard times and an opportunity to make a difference,” Frake said.

Policing for the conservation district is very different from an urban or rural department. They don’t have banks and liquor stores that can be robbed or domestic violence cases to respond to, King said.

She hires many officers who have retired from other agencies and much of what they do is patrolling to prevent problems before they happen.

“We are dealing with people who are out enjoying their lives, connecting with nature, and we get to be a part of that,” she said, and by patrolling, they can “optimize the experience and surprise crime so it doesn’t occur.”

Gumble was a full-time officer in Lakewood and a former part-time officer for Hebron when Village President Robert Shelton contacted her about the chief’s job. There were just four officers – including herself and part-time contract officers – when she took the position.

Now, she is on the street patrolling, along with the responsibilities that come with being chief of a small department – like being the de facto records clerk since no one else is there to do it.

“I am everything right now until we get [new part-time hires] trained up [who] legally can be on the street,” Gumble said.

At the end of the day, King said, their careers in policing have very little to do with their gender and more to do with doing the job the love.

“We have a shared experience and these first female chiefs in McHenry County, ... we will help one another. Her success is my success,” King said.