Openly lesbian mom announced as Tampa police chief

tampabay.com reports that Jane Castor – an openly lesbian mother of two – has been appointed Tampa Florida’s first female police chief.

Mayor Pam Iorio made the announcement during a morning news conference.

Castor’s promotion is significant because she’s openly gay – and she’s served for more than six years as a liaison to Tampa’s gay and lesbian community. Brian Winfield, spokesman for Equality Florida, said it was that communication that eventually helped police identify a suspect in the 2003 murders of two gay men.

According to the St. Petersburg Times, she’s the mother of two boys, both age 10.

Caster joined the Tampa department in 1984. She worked in the narcotics bureau and the sex crimes and child abuse squad in the mid 1990s. By 2001, Castor was a major in charge of multiagency drug investigations. As assistant chief since 2005, she oversaw crime-reducing tactics and managed a $56 million budget for the Department of Homeland Security’s Tampa Bay Urban Area Security Initiative.