When Cecil County appointed a female peace officer in 1961, she became the first woman to perform police duties here. This commission prompted attention from the regional press, and after the county clerk swore in Odette “Skip” Scrivanich, a Baltimore reporter in search of a story, came looking for the “lady constable.”
The newspaperman asked at the courthouse where he could find her and a county commissioner said, “She’s down at Red Point, but don’t fool with her. She’s tough.” When the man visited Red Point Beach, the clerk at the general store informed him that the constable was teaching physical education in Baltimore at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. Returning to Baltimore, he finally caught up with her at the college gymnasium.
After telling the journalist that she had been a physical education instructor at various high schools in Baltimore before coming to Notre Dame, she remarked that there ought to be more teachers who are police officers and more police officers who are teachers. “You have a tone that’s medium firm. Then there’s a full stare, a one-half stare, or a glance, all techniques in maintaining discipline,” she explained. “A police officer can use them successfully.”
When the law enforcement officer was on her beat, Red Point, she was at “the beck and call of everybody all the time,” she explained. I’m called out at 3 o’clock in the morning to stop a fight between campers, quite a beach party, or take care of people who are drunk and disorderly. She said of teenage rumbles: “If I can get rid of the adults and the big brave men who think they can take care of things, then I’m all right. I can’t depend on belligerence and strength. I try to talk the adults into running along. Then I talk to the boys, and it usually works.”
Of course, the calls happened at night when she was trying to sleep, Skip observed. “Once, I was called out to find a prowler some ladies said was about. In the dark of night, I faced a woods, made a clickity-clack with my revolver, and shouted, ” Come out with your hands up. No one came out.”
Constable Servinanich said that if she ever had to shoot, she’d use her rifle as she had pinpoint accuracy. She reported that she had won several championships on the Penn State Rifle Team. “I keep building a reputation by practicing at galleries and carnivals. I let everybody know I’m still in practice.”
“Once, a boat almost ran down some people. I started spreading the word around that if that guy came back, I’d shoot a hole in him where it would do the best. I took the rifle down to the beach and stood in front of everybody. Word spreads fast. He didn’t come back.”
She emphasized that she had never had to use her revolver or rifle and very little of her judo, which she learned from an ex-marine at Johns Hopkins University.
At Red Point, she mostly had vacationers, which she summed up this way: “When people go on vacation, they’re out to have a ball and leave their common sense at home.
Constables
For much of the 20th century, constables augmented the Cecil County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff in Elkton had three or four deputies in 1960 to run the jail 24 hours a day, provide court security, serve warrants, and answer police calls. Thus constables were appointed in various places throughout the county to provide a local police presence and take care of law enforcement matters in their local area. In the 19th century, the system had been much stronger–each election district had constables appointed to serve that area. But that more formal system when the constables did much of the policing work in the outlying areas was starting to fade in the 1960s. Constables were official law enforcement officers and had policing powers, having been appointed to maintain peace and order. Skip was the law at Red Point Beach.
Source: The Constable is a Woman and an Expert with the Rifle, Evening Sun, May 24, 1961