Patrolwoman Doreen A. Tomlinson

I had the opportunity to ride with Doreen one night on the 2nd shift when she was brand new on patrol and she was assigned to my vehicle .

It was a slow night, nothing happening and I asked her if she had made any arrest or done any reports. She told me no. I could tell she didn’t want to just ride around doing nothing.

We drove back to the station, grabbed a couple of municipal arrest warrants (traffic violations, failure to appear) and headed back out. I told her this was going to be fun.

First place we went to I had her knock on the door. She wanted to know what to say if someone answered . I looked at the warrant, saw the person we were looking for was named mike. Told her if someone answers just ask if mike is home.

A female answered from the other side of the door after Doreen knocked and wanted to know who was at the door. I Told Doreen just say it’s Doreen and ask for mike. When she did the Door comes flying open because the female who answered wants to know who this Doreen person is. Doreen sees a male standing behind the female, confirmed he is the mike we are looking for and placed him under arrest. She look at me as she walked him to our car and said this is great. I think I had her do 3 or 4 more. One guy was in the bath room on the toilet; Doreen told him to come out when he was done so she could arrest him. It was a good night.

Paperwork, reports she didn’t mind doing and didn’t need any help with it. I’m thinking she was going to be a pretty good cop and I told her that.

She was pretty smart, able memorize vin numbers after looking at them through the windshield. I found this out when I asked her to get the vin for the accident report I was doing. She walked over to the vehicle, came right back and told me the numbers. Few minutes later I needed the number again and asked her for the paper she wrote it down on. She told me she memorized it and didn’t need to write it down and told the numbers again. “you can memorize vin numbers I said to her.” All she said was yeah. I was very impressed with her then and still am now.

I will always remember Doreen as a cop.

Detective sergeant (r)
Pawtucket

January 2, 2022