Rainie Woods
Rainie Woods (Feb. 6, 1944 – Aug. 15, 2003)
Woods became Bremerton’s first Black police officer in 1969, 68 years after the city hired its first law enforcement official.
White officers who worked with Rainie Woods, the department’s first black officer, remember him not as a racial trailblazer but a gregarious and genial man whose nature made him especially valuable, particularly among the young people who were his special concern.
“He spent more time trying to keep them out of trouble than trying to arrest them,” said Detective Al Hornburg, a friend and golfing buddy since 1980.
Woods joined the Bremerton force in 1969 and retired in 1991.
He began sporting a black cowboy hat when he and partner Greg Steele worked together as juvenile detectives. Soon Steele began wearing a white one.
The gesture proved an effective humanizer and icebreaker with the kids, said Steele, and the pair found themselves hugely successful at crime-solving because teens trusted and confided in them.
“We had more kids identify and talk to us because of those cowboy hats. … We were unique. … We solved more burglaries and crimes than at any time when we were in detectives,” Steele said.
Teens called the pair Ten Speed and Brownshoe, after a popular police television show in the 1970s that featured one black and one white cop.
“He (Woods) had what I would classify as the gift of gab. … He would play the good cop and I would play the bad cop and it worked super well,” said Steele. The two partnered for six years. Steele retired in 2000.
Woods’ daughter, September Hyde, and son Rudy said their father seemed to know everyone in town and everyone seemed to know him. His fellow officers described him the same way.”He just talked to people and they listened. He changed a lot of lives,” said Steele.
Both of Woods’ children were high achievers while growing up. They credit their father for encouraging and supporting them so they could succeed throughout life. “My dad instilled good values,” said Hyde.
Woods coached kids sports, was a member of the American Legion and the NAACP. He was given a PTSA Golden Acorn award in 1982 for his work as a juvenile detective and for helping establish a residential center for youngsters in crisis.
In addition to golf, he loved to play darts and garden, his daughter said. “My dad didn’t leave Bremerton a lot; he was a Bremerton man,” she said.
Some of his early Bremerton neighbors didn’t see it that way, said his daughter. When Woods first moved to Manette, a few people in the area tried to petition against it because of his race, she said.
Steele said there was abundant racism in the community, but what really discouraged Woods was pockets of resistance among some officers. “It was not just in the public, it was in the police department,” Steele said. “It’s hard to work under those conditions.”
Woods was born Feb. 6, 1944, in Hawkins, Texas, to Charles and Ella Boney. He grew up in Seattle. He died at home of natural causes Aug. 15.
He was graduated from Garfield High School in 1962 and spend four years in the Air Force as a military police officer. He worked at Sears before joining BPD, and attended law enforcement classes at Olympic College. He returned to Sears after retiring from the force.
Excerpt from Kitsap Sun Obituary