Up through the ranks
Manhattan Beach Police Chief Eve Irvine. Photo by Alexandra Mandekic Manhattan Beach Police Chief Eve Irvine is the fourth female police chief in Los Angeles County history, a statistic she hopes people will ignore. In the 1980s, Eve Irvine worked the streets. She wore tight jeans and high heels and teased her thick brown hair – a typical outfit for an undercover prostitute. The tank top under her cardigan was wired, connecting her to a group of back-up officers. Irvine was quite successful in her role, picking up – and later arresting – 20 or 30 ‘johns,’ or men, each night she pounded the pavement. During the early years of Irvine’s 29-year tenure serving Inglewood Police Department, female officers were commonly put undercover in an effort to combat the city’s problem with prostitution – an idiosyncrasy of being a woman in a male-dominated field. One man, she recalled, defecated himself upon arrest. Some had drugs, others had guns. Many were married, Irvine recalled. Another man said, ‘That wasn’t the lady I picked up,’ during her testimony against him in court. “Yes, it was, and you just admitted to picking me up,” she said, triumphantly. “And the case was closed.” Irvine, a…
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