Committed to the blue family

By Brett Williams

Sergeant Jodi-Lee Black has recently stepped up to the role of president of SA Police Legacy. She takes the job on with a heap of local and overseas police experience as well as memories of personal tragedy.

THE late-night news of the death of her father had hit Jodi-Lee Black with a mighty wallop. She was a long way from home, serving with the International Deployment Group in the Solomon Islands, more than 3,500km away

The loss brought her to tears. She stepped out of the hut she shared with her colleagues so the sound of her sobbing would not wake them. Then, alone in a nearby breezeway on that humid Solomon Islands night in 2007, she let those tears flow

Night-shift crews returning from duty found Black still there in the breezeway in the morning They were “very kind” to her, as were others after word of the death of her father had quickly spread

He was a former sailor and only 66 but had, years earlier, suffered a heart attack and several massive strokes.

“He was poorly, and had been for a long time,” Black remembers. “All of us had sort of thought: ‘Well, how long does this go on?’ But we thought it’d be years Then, when he died, it happened very, very quickly ”

Black got a flight home to Adelaide the next day and stayed for five weeks After that, she had to head back to work with the IDG in the Solomon Islands

“But,” she says, “it was really hard leaving mum behind and just wondering how she would manage. It still sticks with me even now. ”

Of course, the job she had to get back to was one of two her father never wanted her to pursue Decades earlier, he had forbidden her from joining the military Her brother had joined the navy and she had “badly wanted to join the services” too It was her career of first choice

But her father, himself a navy man, simply would not hear of his daughter serving with the military.

“It would not be discussed,” she says. “My dad was very much a traditionalist. He was very much: ‘No, women don’t belong in the services ’

“That’s probably why I set my eyes on policing, because it was the closest thing I could think of to the services It just really appealed to me I wanted an interesting job

“He did start to object (to me joining the police) but I said: ‘Dad, you’ve had your veto. You said no to the military. You don’t get a say this time. ’

“But he was so very proud when I graduated. From the time I was a probationary constable I was, in his mind, running the police force I was going to be the first female commissioner ”

Resistance had never come from Black’s mother Jan Black, now 82 and a retired schoolteacher, had herself taken on supposedly inappropriate roles for women One was as a teacher in Woomera when the job was not even open to single women.

“And because she was a bit of a trailblazer with teaching,” Black says, “she was happy for me to do it (join the police) ”

BLACK had gone into policing as a strait-laced 18-year-old just out of Parafield Gardens High School She still identifies as strait-laced but recognizes that, after 36 years, police work has “definitely” changed her.

Right from her earliest days on the road she had to confront all the same horrors that test the mettle of every other police officer

As a probationer attached to Para Hills patrols in 1988, she and her partner responded to a report of a man threatening suicide. He looked at the officers as they approached his front door, raised a rifle to his head, shot himself and died.

“It shocked me to my core,” Black says “I’d never even seen a body before that But it wasn’t something that I carried with me (as a burdensome image) ”

Other images, however, did come with the scope to plague Black, or any other front-liner

Never likely to fade from her memory is a fatal crash she responded to near Booleroo Centre in 2000. In a car, which hit a tree and rolled several times, was a woman and her two children aged around five and seven.

The woman wound up thrown from the car and killed Her children survived and emerged unhurt Black was the first police officer on the scene

“It was horrendous,” she says “It was a case of come around the corner and there’s the scene, right in front of you ”

Black absorbed the rawness of the crash and its aftermath, and her heart broke for the children.

“One of the local farmers or someone had covered the mother and had (moved) the kids away from her,” she recalls “They understood what had happened They knew mum was dead ”

Black responded to around a dozen fatal crashes in just her first 18 months on the road. She figured that was normal until she caught up with mates from her course, who had not yet dealt with any road deaths

At the two-year mark of her career, Eudunda-born Black “headed bush” Among her posts over the next 14 years were Port Lincoln, Port Pirie, Coober Pedy and Peterborough She also served at many small Mid North stations, as well as one-person stations at Hallett and Riverton.

One thing police work changed about her, as the years rolled on, was her depth of confidence. At the outset of her career, she was “very quiet” and struggled just to speak to people

“I’m not (quiet) now,” she says “I can go into a room full of people I don’t know and speak to them I’m quite confident with that now So, police work has changed me from that perspective ”

The one thing police work has never done is harden her heart. She describes the softer side of her character as dominant and concedes that she has never had “that killer instinct”.

After she returned from her country service in 2004, Black wound up at Salisbury police station. Later, however, she took on the role of relief planner at Elizabeth

In 2007, she won her secondment to the AFP to serve with the IDG in the Solomon Islands She undertook five weeks of training in Canberra before she flew out of Australia

Political and ethnic unrest had plagued the Solomon Islands for several years Australian police and the ADF had contributed to peacekeeping efforts since 2000.

Black began her 15-month stint on the archipelago after a general election had sparked the 2006 Honiara riots But the confessed victim-oriented cop “love, love, loved” her time there

“I just really liked the idea of making a basic difference,” she says “We all get up in arms if we don’t have a computer at our beck and call One of my main aims while I was there (in the Solomons) was to get everybody access to pencil and paper

“The vast majority of their police force couldn’t read or write. But just being there and feeling that you were actually helping make a difference (was what I loved) ”

WITH her time up in the Solomon Islands, Black came home and went back to work on the local scene

At the same time, however, she applied to join the Australian Federal Police

The AFP accepted her application, but then came the global financial crisis of 2008 AFP courses wound up cancelled and, in the end, Black never made the move from state to federal policing.

In 2008, she scored the job to which she is still committed today: Northern District planner Black, 55, has always enjoyed the role and expects to remain in it until she retires

“I don’t want to go back on the road so my options are limited,” she says “If I didn’t have Mum to consider, I’d probably go somewhere remote for a couple of years just to finish off with because I love remote policing ”

Black faced her toughest time as a planner during the COVID-19 pandemic. The demands on her, to schedule Northern District staff for duties unconnected to crimefighting, were immense

“It (the workload) was huge,” she recalls. “The district planners all wore that (burden) quite a bit, and Northern’s got only one planner.

“So, my job during COVID changed completely I basically became a roster sergeant making sure that all the Northern District requirements at hotels, hospitals and borders were met I also did several border patrols myself

“It was a very hectic couple of years (2020-21) and, at times I thought it would kill me from sheer workload But it was also very rewarding because I know what I did mattered. ”

At that time, Black was also fulfilling – and still fulfils – the role of carer to her ailing mother, who has lived with her for the last 10 years

SHE also kept up her commitment to SA Police Legacy as a member of its board, which she has served since 2012 . And now, after seven years as its vicepresident, she has stepped up to take on the presidency, in place of Senior Sergeant 1C Mark Willing

Black concedes that the step up daunts her somewhat She has never served as a figurehead with a title like president

But she speaks of Police Legacy with obvious passion The future of the charitable organization, which moved into new premises in Gilbert St late last year, clearly excites her.

“But I was smitten right from the start with Police Legacy,” she says “I love the idea of it I love the idea of the blue family and helping each other out I want to encourage that

“I want to get out to let members know what we’re doing so that, ultimately, they can come to us if there’s a need

“We’re starting to move into the mental-health sphere and we’re hopefully going to put together a talk group at the Legacy office once a month.

“We’ve now got people with full-on welfare and bereavement qualifications and they get what the widows and the kids need ”

The issue for Black and her team now is to meet an ever-increasing demand for Police Legacy support To do that, the organization needs increased funding and is appealing to police contributors to bump up their donations to $5 per fortnight in HR21

And Black stresses that Police Legacy is associated with, but not an arm of, SAPOL .

“We don’t report to SAPOL,” she says. “So, they (members and families) can be certain of confidentiality with us ”

As she strives to live up to expectation as president, Black also has an eye on her police future Indeed, she hopes to retire within the next few years Her reason is that she is a little weary and “just about done”

“That’s not because I haven’t loved it,” she insists. “It’s been great. But I do want to travel, and much further afield than Asia. I’ve never done Europe. I’ve done Hawaii but none of mainland America. I just want to see all of that ” PJ