I met 90-year-old Mollie Gustine in early March, at the Queens nursing home where she was temporarily living recovering from an illness. I was doing a story about the retired NYPD detective for Women’s History Month.
Looking at one of her old police photos, Ms. Mollie, as many people called her, said, “that’s me in the uniform.”
What stood out for her in the picture wasn’t the uniform she wore, but the smile she wore on her face.
You see, Mollie Gustine became a city police officer in 1963. As you can imagine, the NYPD had very few African American women on the force back then.
She went on to work undercover and became a detective in 1974. She said she was one of the first women to be a union delegate for patrol officers. She was also the first black woman to be a delegate for detectives.
Watch the NY 1 interview here.
