Page 25 - October Newsletter

P traits by Peter Bucks
Tributes to officers from the CPD Officer, Lodge 7 member and renowned artist
Reeling in the years
Robert Ruiz isn’t quite ready to give up his job pa- trolling the streets of Chi- cago to pursue his passion of fishing full time. Rather, it’s his ability to leave the rigors of law enforcement in the locker with his badge and uniform and enjoy his off-duty hobby that refreshes him enough to keep coming back ev- ery day. And after nearly 30 years on the force with no end in sight, it seems he has found the perfect balance...hook, line and sinker.
In his tackle box of
police experience, the
57-year-old Ruiz started
on patrol followed by 23
years working in a tacti-
cal unit covering narcot-
ics, drugs and gangs. He
also was detailed to the ROBERT NATO Summit in Chicago RUIZ in 2012 and worked a Democratic National Com- Star #8987 mittee Convention. Then about four years ago,
Ruiz finally put back on his uniform and returned to a beat car, which he now runs in 022.
“I pretty much got burned out doing TAC all those years,” Ruiz admits. “Officers want to get out of uniform and get on TAC, but now I enjoy working a beat car, doing beat meetings, answer calls on my beat. It’s sort of repet- itive in that it’s a lot of report writing, just going to calls, but you can really help people that need the help a little bit more when you’re working a beat. Now that I’m back in uniform, I probably enjoy it more than when I first started.”
Ruiz credits his vast policing skills to his early days on the beat, when he was able to absorb lessons from a handful of partners.
“I didn’t have a steady partner, so I started to pick up a bunch of skills from different people,” he recalls. “All offi- cers have their own style of policing. Some are good at find- ing hot cars, for instance; some are good at narcotics; some
#
like traffic enforcement; some are good at getting guns – everyone has their own little specialty.”
Poetically, in his effort to look for his niche, Ruiz discovered it was “look- ing” that he was looking for all along. Surveillance, that is.
“I love doing surveil- lance – that was a big thing with me,” Ruiz rem- iniscences. “I can sit on a location for hours. I know a lot of guys get bored with them, but there’s just something about it. Peo- ple think they’re getting away with things when nobody’s watching.”
Ruiz reflects on a month-long surveillance stint in which he set up shop in an empty apart- ment that overlooked a drug house.
“I would sneak up into the building and spend eight hours at a time watching people buying nar- cotics from there,” he states. “We made quite a few
arrests during that period.”
Throughout his career, Ruiz notes that his favorite
non-surveillance times were those spent with his partners and colleagues.
“That’s what makes you want to come to work,” he says. “We would have fun, laugh a lot, and we’d go out and eat lunch together. They make the day go by.”
Yet Ruiz believes that it’s his separation of work and plea- sure that continues to keep him motivated day-to-day.
“For me, it’s a nine-to-five job,” he emphasizes. “I want to enjoy life like anyone else would enjoy life outside of work. I think you need to distance yourself like that; you need your getaway time so you can bring more into the job during work hours. You need a release valve, and for me, that’s fishing – I can fish 24/7. Time goes by quickly – you need to enjoy life.” d
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ OCTOBER 2017 25