Page 6 - TPA Journal November December2021

BY AARON MARCO
The following article is an interview of TPA’s 4th Vice President Chief Felix Sauceda of the
Brownsville Police Department.

This article is being reprinted from the Fall issue of
THE JOURNAL OF THE TEXAS TACTICAL
POLICE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION
with permission from the organization.

The Power of Dedication

The Brownsville Police Department has a tough job. With approximately 247 officers serving a
general public of 189,000 in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, they have their hands full serving their
community. The cartel violence, human smuggling, and narcotics trafficking issues alone are
incredible, but in addition the surrounding cities and counties have depressed economies and struggle
with staffing and funding. Somehow, BPD has managed to dedicate time, resources, and personnel
towards investing in direct training back to their own officers. How have they made this happen?

I got a chance to sit down with the Brownsville Chief of Police, Felix Sauceda. I had previously heard
about a local SWAT competition that Brownsville PD put on where he gave opening remarks to the
teams present in his suit …. while in a front leaning rest position after they all did pushups together.
BPD officers spoke very highly of his mindset, his investment into his own people, and his dedication
to training. Not common things you hear from officers about their Chief.… so I sat down to talk to
him to see what made him tick. Why and how is he pushing training so hard when departments five
times that size struggle to do the minimum?

Chief Sauceda started his career with Brownsville PD, and is currently working on his 30th year of
service. He joined their SWAT team as an Officer and remained on the team as he promoted until
he reached command staff level. Even then, he continued to support the team with equipment and
training needs as they came up. He began to identify things in the organization he thought could be
done better, things that would help raise the level of officers and once elevated, hold them to that
higher standard. He remembered the proficiency he and his teammates built through all their years
training on SWAT resulted in incredibly reduced liability and their ability to solve problems without
force in situations where lesser trained officers may have resorted to it. He brought that mindset to
his command duties and continued to champion training within the agency.

2 www.texaspoliceassociation.com • (512) 458-3140 Texas Police Journal