NEW YORK, USA — Danae McFarlane still recalls the impact of deep poverty on her, including causing her embarrassment at school as she grew up in the rural Jamaica farming community of Sanguinneti, Clarendon.

Now, more than two decades later and worlds apart from those unending days of want and deprivation, Lieutenant Danae McFarlane is basking in the considerable strides she has made within the New York City Police Department (NYPD), America’s largest law enforcement agency with 36,000 uniformed officers and 19,000 civilian employees, according to its website.

“We were not rich, far from it, and at times the lack of resources was seriously challenging,” McFarlane told the Jamaica Observer after a visit to the island of her birth.

She credits her grandfather Fitzalbert Mills, a farmer and district constable, for much of what she has been able to achieve in her life.

“He exhibited a high level of discipline and ensured that the virtue of a sound education was understood,” she explained, noting that while she grew up around farm animals like pigs, goats, and chickens, she never had to care for them as, “my grandfather was very protective and tender with the females in the family”. She came to look up to him as her role model and hero, she said.

McFarlane’s time at Sacred Heart Academy, an early childhood education institution in Manchester, also helped to shape her life, she noted, describing what she learnt there as “the genesis of my education”. She also attended St Paul of the Cross School, since renamed Mount St Joseph High School in the parish.

The entire trajectory of her life changed when an aunt, Lora Allen — a resident of the United States — decided that she should migrate, and rescued the family from the economic challenges facing them.

McFarlane was only 13 years old but recalls that she arrived in the US to culture shock, which was softened somewhat by the fact that there were many Jamaicans living in The Bronx where she settled and with whom she was able to relate.

“I was enrolled in Richard Green Middle School soon after and was promptly placed in an honours programme as a result of my educational achievements in Jamaica. It was then on to Harry S Truman High School where I decided I wanted to become an attorney,” she tells this reporter.

After high school she went on to John J College of Criminal Justice, graduating with honours and gaining a bachelors degree in criminal justice with a minor in law.

McFarlane said she decided to join the NYPD as a cadet in 2008 upon learning she could do so while working. Soon after, in 2010, she transitioned to a full police officer and was assigned to the Domestic Violence Unit.

Her next assignment was as a detective in the Special Victims Unit. The 39-year-old mother of two has since been promoted on several occasions. First as sergeant in the Field Intelligence Division and then as sergeant in the detective squad assigned to the Regional Intelligence Center.

As she continues to climb the ranks of the NYPD, McFarlane, a deeply religious woman, nabbed her biggest promotion yet when she was promoted to lieutenant last year. She is currently the commanding officer of the NYPD Field Intelligence Investigation Unit.

She is also continuing her education, pursuing a master’s degree in criminal justice and plans on taking the exam next year to become a captain in the NYPD. Despite her workload and studying, McFarlane has pledged to help others, refusing to forget her past.

As president of the NYPD Jamaican-American Law Enforcement Organisation (NYPD JAmLEO), a position she assumed in January last year, McFarlane has been instrumental in assisting students in Jamaica with their education and other needs.

Last month she led a team from the organisation, which donated $1.2 million to Marcus Garvey Technical High School in St Ann. The donation will be used to assist 60 grade 12 students who McFarlane believes should not have to “worry about anything else, they should just go to school and learn”.

School supplies, including backpacks and notebooks, were also distributed by the group.

Last year, NYPD JAmLEO assisted students at Mount Alvernia High School and Cornwall College in Montego Bay, St James.

As she continues her meteoric rise in the NYPD McFarlane acknowledges the possibility that she could one day rise to the position of police commissioner at the NYPD, but with one caveat: “If it’s God’s will.”

In an interview on the sidelines of the 10th Biennial Conference of the Global Jamaica Diaspora Council in Montego Bay last year, McFarlane urged Jamaicans who are eligible to “apply to join the NYPD”, saying: “My job at this conference is to bring awareness that the NYPD is hiring and that opportunities in the department are not limited to uniform positions only.”

At the time of the interview the 16-year NYPD veteran said there were about 1,145 Jamaicans working in the force and that “there is much more to the NYPD than what is perceived and seen on TV”.