Rosa M. Melendez worked in law-enforcement for 25 years, including 17 years with the Seattle Police Department (SPD) (1976-1994), where she worked in the Patrol Division, Personnel Division, Internal Investigations Unit, Community Service Section and on the U.S. Department of Justice's Weed and Seed grant-funded program. She was the first woman of color on the Seattle Police Department to be promoted to the rank of sergeant, and she left the SPD as a lieutenant in 1994. In 1994, Ms. Melendez was appointed to the position of U.S. Marshal, becoming the first woman of color to become a U.S. Marshal. From 2000, Melendez worked as the Regional Director for the U.S. Department of Justice Community Relations Service (CRS), retiring in 2014. As of 2021, Melendez serves on the Board for Encanto Arts, a non-profit organization which assists rural youth from underrepresented populations in Washington State by promoting the performing arts, culture and education.
This photo shows Lieutenant Rosa Melendez at the SPD East Precinct in December 1992, when she was in charge of the city's controversial Weed and Seed program. Weed and Seed was a 1992 Bush administration initiative to provide federal grants to city governments to help “weed” drug-dealing and crime from troubled neighborhoods, and “seed” those areas with social programs.
Caption information source: Washington Courts website biography of Rosa Melendez, retrieved at https://www.courts.wa.gov/?fa=home.sub&org=mjc&page=bioMelendez&layout=2 Caption information source: "Weed and Reap- And Plow Ahead - Latino Police Lieutenant Shrugs Off the Flak as She Tackles Anti-Drug Project" by Michael A. Barber, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 3, 1992, p. B1.
