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New Police Chief Peter Pacillas is a well-recognized face a number of the rank-and-file of the El Paso Police Department.
After greater than 30 years with the dep. — emerging from patrol officer to sergeant to lieutenant and ultimately assistant leader in 2009 — Pacillas is via all accounts a made of the dep. and overdue Chief Greg Allen.
Around El Paso, a group of just about 680,000 citizens, Pacillas is hardly ever a family identify. His tale past the uniform is rather difficult to understand.
At a news conference in early October, Interim City Manager Cary Westin spoke about Pacillas’ qualities and strengths whilst explaining what El Pasoans informed him they sought after maximum from their new leader.
“Our community wants a police chief who understands El Paso’s unique culture, who is collaborative, communicative, transparent and approachable,” Westin stated. “And one who will hold the department accountable and maintain a high standard of leadership and expectations for all of our officers.”
“In my mind,” he added, “Police Chief Peter Pacillas embodies all these characteristics.”
Pacillas humbly mentioned creating a powerful courting between the group and its police pressure.
After a number of weeks to regulate to his new function, Pacillas agreed to box some questions from the El Paso Times about policing in El Paso.
Pacillas turns out guarded in talking publicly about himself or his plans for EPPD — his first interview with the El Paso Times was once recorded on two separate video cameras whilst no less than 3 different EPPD officials listened within sight — however he did percentage his imaginative and prescient for what El Paso and its law enforcement officials want shifting ahead.
Pacillas says he plans to take on the emerging development of violence within the town, a subject matter he described as probably the most urgent fear in El Paso. For that, he plans to make use of enhanced surveillance measures, reinforce enforcement activity forces and recruit extra officials.
More:Peter Pacillas named new El Paso police leader
Pacillas has noticed the town thru a few of its worst crises, whether or not that be the Aug. 3, 2019 mass taking pictures or the consistent ebb and drift of chaos on the U.S.-Mexico border, over his just about 40 years in policing.
The leader, paid $210,000 yearly, graduated from the El Paso Police Academy in July 1985 and was once assigned to Central Patrol. Over the years, he is served at the division’s bomb squad, prison intelligence department, tactical unit, fatherland safety department and SWAT staff.
He’s hoping all that have will serve him smartly as he seems to be to handle El Paso’s secure town standing and the top requirements anticipated from the EPPD.
Speaking in his standard calm, quiet tone, Pacillas mentioned group considerations, problems with transparency and duty inside the division and supplied some perception into his policing and control philosophies.
El Paso’s greatest crime problems
Q: What do you spot as probably the most urgent crime problems in El Paso presently?
Pacillas: “Well, we have the violence that’s going on. We’ve surged a couple of task forces. It was pretty well documented in the media how one of those task forces stopped an individual with a rifle in the Cincinnati District. I think those officers and the task force personnel stopped another mass shooting at the entertainment district over there. So, seeing that, we’re trying to address that. But fatalities, whether it’s pedestrian fatalities or motor vehicle fatalities, addressing that through repositioning our traffic resources. And then the last one is … the most pressing property crime right now is theft of vehicles. Especially with the Hyundais and the Kias.”
Q: Why Hyundai and Kia?
Pacillas: “From what I understand, there’s some type of way that the criminals can exploit the ignition system on those types of vehicles.”
Talking transparency
Q: When you had been named leader, you spoke so much about transparency. What will that seem like for your management? Do you intend to carry common press meetings to stay the group knowledgeable on what’s going on within the town and inside the division?
Pacillas: “I’ll be working with a (public information officer) staff to help get information out to the community, not just events that happen in the community, but there’s a lot of good things that the men and women of the El Paso Police Department are doing on a daily basis, so that the community understands the caliber of police officers we have in there. Also holding regular meetings with news directors to make sure we have an open line of communication established and maintained.”
Q: You have known as the El Paso Police Department probably the most very best within the country. Do you’re feeling that provides you with a platform to talk out on nationwide policing problems?
Pacillas: “So, we are a member of the Major City Chiefs Association, and they have two — you have the main conference in the fall and then they have a biannual conference where all of us chiefs come together to help address the various really complex issues that we’re all facing and come up with strategies and lessons that we can all share with each other.”
Q: Being from probably the most country’s most secure main towns, do you imagine you’ve gotten a accountability to take the lead in creating the ones nationwide methods?
Pacillas: “We’re in a very unique position here being in El Paso directly on an international border. So policing and getting my counterparts across the nation to understand there are very unique challenges of policing on an international border. Not only that, we’re directly on the Texas-New Mexico border. So, you have, really, as we say here in El Paso, where three states come together and two countries. Dealing with those issues and being so isolated, a lot of these chiefs work in metroplexes, so they can call on resources from some of the suburbs. We’re very unique here that, should we have a major event, it’s up to the law enforcement and the first responders to come together and deal with issues as quickly as we can. Because help isn’t coming, not very quickly.”
Q: In the previous, it were commonplace follow to unencumber the names of officials desirous about shootings at the activity. Allen ended that follow — will you renew it?
Pacillas: “Whatever we legally can release, we will release.”
Allegations and duty
Q: How is the dep. coping with fresh sexual harassment allegations and do you assume the ones problems are indicative of a larger underlying drawback inside the division?
Pacillas: “I’ll go back to what I said in the press conference, we follow the same policies that the city of El Paso has, zero tolerance. As soon as we’re made aware of allegations of sexual harassment or a hostile work environment, we will open up an administrative investigation. Since we get our people from society like everybody else, I don’t think it’s unique to the El Paso Police Department. You’re dealing with human beings. But I think where we prove to the public is that we take it seriously and we thoroughly investigate on the administrative side. And if it raises to the level of a criminal violation, it will be investigated on the criminal side of the department also.”
More:El Paso police lieutenant, sergeant arrested on sexual harassment allegations
Q: Along with the new sexual harassment allegations, different officials had been discovered to be protecting up for their colleagues. Do you imagine this is an remoted incident?
Pacillas: “As long as I’ve been on the department, as soon as the department becomes aware of those types of allegations or other allegations, an investigation is opened up. So, in my career, I’ve never seen where something has been hidden. I reemphasize, as soon as we’re made aware of allegations, whether it’s from the victim or a third party within the department, we open up an investigation immediately.”
Addressing asylum-seekers
Q: What do you spot as the dep.’s function in addressing the continued migrant disaster? Do you spot your function as extra enforcement or humanitarian?
Pacillas: “Well, it’s both. So, it’s a humanitarian crisis … when you have people that are coming into an area that they just have no idea where they’re in, they could be victims of crimes. So, to the El Paso Police Department, an El Paso police officer, myself, it doesn’t matter why somebody’s in our jurisdiction, our obligation and our responsibility is to protect them and keep them from becoming victims of crimes. And should there be a criminal element that’s trying to prey on them, our responsibility is to stop that activity and put people in jail if we have a probable cause to make arrests.”
More:El Paso migrant disaster: Downtown side road closed; Fort Bliss MPs to assist at border
Q: What does the enforcement facet of that situation seem like?
Pacillas: “So, we did have to divert resources when we had the migrants congregating in different areas of town. We had to help the Office of Emergency Management with their shelter and security plan, once again, to make sure individual groups did not become victims of crimes.”
Policing in an open elevate Texas
Q: How have Texas gun rules impacted or modified policing all through your occupation?
Pacillas: “We don’t make the laws, the Legislature makes the laws. As far the concealed carry, or the constitutional carry, it doesn’t change the fact that anytime a police officer shows up to a scene, as we’re trained at the El Paso Police Academy, there’s always going to be a weapon involved because the police officer’s bringing it. So, you have to make sure that you’re able, capable of protecting yourself and evaluating the circumstances of the incident as they develop.”
Q: Other states have won opposition from regulation enforcement teams over constitutional elevate proposals. Do you concern that constitutional elevate in Texas makes regimen encounters extra unhealthy?
Pacillas: “So, the criminal is the criminal element. It will disregard whatever law you want to talk about. So, if they’re going to disregard weapon laws, they’re going to have them anyway. The concealed carry or open carry actually proved itself out in the Cielo Vista shooting. You had a licensed concealed carry individual who stopped that criminal activity where somebody was going to be murdered. And who knows what could have happened if it had kept on going.”
Stepping up ‘intelligence-based policing’
Q: Can you describe the dep.’s present video surveillance program?
Pacillas: “You’re referring to the city watch program. We received grant funding … we use intelligence-based policing. So, those key points where it would help the officers in the field and the detectives who are following up to be able to respond or conduct investigations. Those cameras will be going up in key locations where we see the crime tends typically to spike.”
Q: Have you heard any considerations from citizens about that program?
Pacillas: “It seems like people support it. In fact, there was an incident when we first started doing this program, I can’t remember the exact year, it actually helped us solve a murder in the Downtown area.”
Q: What are your ideas at the division’s fresh use of a debatable geofence warrant, which makes use of mobile phone knowledge to resolve a suspect’s location, to apprehend a homicide suspect?
Pacillas: “Like everything we do, we have to make sure that we do not violate the Constitution of the United States. So, in order for us to get any warrant, the officer, the detective has to type up an affidavit, present it to a judge who determines if there is probable cause for a warrant to establish that we can get a search warrant or an arrest warrant. So there are checks and balances in the criminal justice system. So, if the judge, or if there’s case law that has to be followed, our first priority is to make sure people’s constitutional rights are not violated.”
More:Controversial geofence warrant used to arrest suspect in El Paso attorney’s deadly taking pictures
Assessment of Aug. 3, 2019
Q: Can you describe your stories all through the Aug. 3, 2019, mass taking pictures in El Paso?
Pacillas: “Very surreal, I think for everybody, especially the families that were affected. The police officers who responded showed the community the finest examples and traditions of the El Paso Police Department. We had officers running in … the initial officer was by himself. He ran into that store not knowing. He knew there was an active shooter, but he did not know what he was going to encounter in there. But he did what his duty called him to do and went in there by himself until the second officer got on the scene.”
Q: What was once your function all through and after the taking pictures?
Pacillas: “So you have to rely that the El Paso police officers and supervisors in the field are handling the situation. Our responsibility up in the chief’s office was to get to the emergency operations center and help them get the resources they needed to help address the situation as it was developing.”
More:‘I nonetheless take it in my view’: The El Paso Walmart mass shooter sentencing
Q: What had been one of the most belongings you noticed as you had been making the ones preparations?
Pacillas: “How well the law enforcement community in El Paso responded along with the El Paso Fire Department to get the assistance to those who were wounded and to help the families at the reunification center and help provide them with information that was very difficult to digest and be able to make sure that we’re getting out accurate information to the families who were affected.”
Looking forward
Q: What are your greatest priorities as police leader?
Pacillas: “For the city of El Paso to maintain El Paso as one of the safest cities in the United States. For the department, it’s recruiting, recruitment. Going back to the society, everybody’s looking, you see ‘help wanted’ signs everywhere, ‘now hiring.’ I think there’s a uniqueness to the police profession is that there is a pretty arduous application process because the citizens of El Paso expect the El Paso Police Department to maintain its status and standards, so only the most qualified individuals become El Paso police officers.”
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