SAN JUAN PD’S NEW REAR STICKERS

By G. Romero Wendorf

SAN JUAN – This city’s police department is taking a unique approach to policing: it’s letting its police officer mix God with street patrol.

Right there, on the rear hatch of the San Juan police unit, a bumper sticker that reads in big, bold print: IN GOD WE TRUST.

In more liberal cities perhaps -- Austin, San Francisco, Portland, Boston -- this might not fly. The ACLU might already be asking a judge for a temporary restraining order on behalf of an atheist upset over seeing God’s name on a taxpayer-funded vehicle.

But in San Juan, police officer were given the go-ahead recently by Police Chief Juan Gonzalez to affix the bumper sticker to their assigned unit if they felt so inclined. As long as they used their own money to pay for it.

“A while ago, I had the police chaplain, a sergeant, come up to me,” says Gonzalez, “who brought to my attention that some of the officers were getting together fairly often and praying for different things – public safety, their own safety, the safety of the community. We already have (an imprint) of the Basilica (San Juan Catholic Shrine and the city’s most famous tourist attraction) on our patches and our badges. And the sergeant mentioned the idea about the bumper sticker.”

Gonzalez says he took some time to think about the request. A cop for approximately 27 years, he’s seen the good and bad in people, and he’s seen the rise in violent crime along the border, even though crime in Hidalgo County still ranks lower than Corpus, San Antonio and Houston, according to FBI crime stats. So all of these things are running through his mind, he says, while he’s considering the police chaplain’s request.

Last summer, Gonzalez was the task-force commander involved in the La Joya shootout after area law enforcement agencies cornered a known member of the Texas Syndicate who had just shot two Edinburg cops earlier that same day while they were trying to serve an arrest warrant on him for capital murder charges. Both cops survived, but the gang member went down in a hail of bullets after an approximate three-hour stand-off, during which he traded approximately 400 rounds of high-velocity ammo with cops that turned the relatively quiet La Joya community into something that resembled a scene straight out of the movie “Scarface.”

So it’s not as if he hasn’t seen the bullets fly. In the old days, a cop rarely fired his gun throughout his entire career. But the times they have a changed.

“Plus, you look at what’s going on around the country,” says Gonzalez, “and it seems like the risk to police officers is higher than I’ve ever seen it.”

Just last month, a Harris County deputy in the Houston metroplex who was pumping gas into his patrol unit, just about to go off duty, was shot in the back of the head 15 times. A clear motive to his murder still hasn’t been established. A suspect remains in custody.

“But you think about these things,” says Gonzalez, “and I thought, you know, if an officer wants to put a bumper sticker on the back of their patrol unit that says, ‘In God We Trust,’ and they believe it makes them safer, then I’m not going to say no.”

In San Juan, each officer is assigned his or her own patrol unit. Out of 45 units, approximately 15 officers have the God stickers attached to their vehicle’s rear.

“The main thing I looked at,” says Gonzalez, “was whether or not it was a reasonable request and whether or not it would hinder our services to the public.”

Since the rear stickers were put on, Gonzalez says that some area churches have actually responded in a positive way that actually benefits the city of San Juan.

“We’ve had several local churches donate some funds (to Crimestoppers) already because they’ve seen these stickers affixed to the back of some of our patrol units.”

And in fact, says Gonzalez, some members of the local law enforcement community have praised the ‘In God We Trust’ bumper stickers.

“They see it as a crime-prevention approach (of sorts) for protecting both the public and the police force,” says the chief.

Some people may consider this a stretch, but Gonzalez says one never knows what’s going through the mind of a criminal.

“So who can say that someone thinking about committing a crime won’t see that message on the back of a police unit and think twice about what he’s fixing to do. You just never know. And if that message were to deter criminals from hurting one of our officers or a member of the general public, then I support them 110 percent.”