Looking back, Anabel Morris has no idea what prompted her to knock on a windowpane while answering a domestic disturbance call.
But it was a decision that almost certainly saved lives, interrupting an assault inside the apartment. Victims were rescued. The assailant was taken into custody. A crisis ended safely.
That knock was one of many incidents that Morris encountered while rising through the ranks of the Stockton Police Department. Whether it was working as a hostage negotiator or in community relations, the stops that Morris took on her career path built a foundation for her most important promotion yet: the first Latina to be named deputy chief.
From her start as a trainee in 2001, Morris saw police work as a way to make a difference.
“It was about being able to touch the community, provide that service that is needed,” she said.
No matter what call brings officers to a scene, the challenge is to solve problems and comfort victims, “allowing them to have some sort of peace and bring a resolution to a concern that they may have,” Morris said.
The veteran police officer has always been someone who doesn’t mind a challenge. That started with humble beginnings.
Morris was raised in migrant housing, Camps 11 and 12 in Planada, a small community east of Merced. Her parents worked on farms six days a week, rising early to head into the fields. It was left to Morris and her siblings to get dressed and catch the bus to school. On Sundays, the family would attend barbecues or while away the day at Lake Merced.
“We didn’t feel … that we were poor,” she said. “We had what we needed. We had clothes on our backs.”
Before becoming a police officer, Morris worked as a dispatcher for an ambulance company in Merced, then later in Stockton. It was during that time she met a Stockton police officer who would become her husband.
She eventually entered the Police Academy herself. She found the toughness that had been ingrained in her as a kid paid off when it came to the physical demands of the academy.
Women must adhere to the same training qualifications as men. To meet those requirements — 15 pushups in 90 seconds, running 500 yards in 2 1/2 minutes — Morris said she overtrained. She made sure she could do 20 pushups so she would easily meet the standard when test time came.
Keeping up with her male colleagues became a matter of self-discipline for Morris.
“You know, we say, ‘Life isn’t fair,’ (but) there’s a lot of things we can do to help ourselves and prepare,” she said. “As long as you are resilient and you fight, you find that within yourself to keep going.”
Preparedness has paid off in her police career, especially in responding to calls like the assault.
In recalling that incident, Morris said she and her partner had been responding to a 911 call. They had little go on; the caller had abruptly hung up.
After getting no a response at the door, Morris decided to tried another tactic.
“There was absolutely no reason for me to knock on the window. It was just a decision that was made. I have no idea why I did it,” she said.
The drumbeat of knuckles awoke a domestic violence victim, who had been beaten and passed out. She told Morris and her partner that another woman was under attack inside the residence. The officers entered, stopped the attack and arrested the assailant after he tried to hide in a closet.
A dangerous call, to be sure, “because you don’t know if a person is armed or not,” she said.
For police officers, diffusing threatening situations through conversation is far safer than having to go “hands on” to place a suspect under arrest. With street smarts and the gift of gab, Morris became part of the crisis negotiations team. She learned to establish a rapport with those in crisis situations.
Growing up in a Spanish-speaking household gave her a bilingual advantage as well.
The 49-year-old has also worked as a field training officer and school resource officer. She began rising through the ranks of the department in 2016, when she became a sergeant. That move was followed two years later with a promotion to lieutenant.
She said she wanted to wait until the youngest of her two daughters was in junior high school before starting another promotion process. She worked the overnight shift for most of a decade in order to be able to spend more time with her girls when they were young.
Now, as deputy chief, Morris is in charge of the department’s Community Relations and Logistic Bureau.
The assignment puts her right back at the heart of the reason she joined the police force in the first place: a chance to solve problems and help people.