Page 31 - November 2015

COVER STORY
‘Disciplined,
‘A good program will work anywhere’
professional and
firm’
With 35 years globetrotting from Germany keeping Communists at bay in the 1980s as a 2nd Lieutenant, to Iraq during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 as a Company Commander of the 82nd Airborne, to his final tour in Afghanistan in 2011 as a Lieutenant Colonel, Robert Garcia developed the unequivocal leadership skills that make him an asset to the Chicago PD.
Celebrating his 20th year of service as a CPD Patrolman on Oct. 23, Garcia reflected on a life that mixed military service abroad with police work at home, and how he used law enforcement models to affect change in some of the most tumultuous regions of the world.
Developed by Northwestern University in the 1990s, Garcia – who joined the CPD in 1995 – exported the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) of community policing to places such as Bosnia where he went in 1997 as an International Police Task Force Officer with the Army Reservists for its peace-keeping mission. He again brought CAPS to Iraq and Afghanistan.
“A good program will work anywhere,” Garcia attested. “(In Afghanistan), we even had Taliban members come to the table.”
Likewise, a good leader will work everywhere. The 57-year-old, now retired from the military, recalls a community policing program run by the CPD in his neighborhood in 1968 that took kids to the movies, and planted the seed that led him to become a cop.
“I always remember that good experience and I wanted to do that,” he explained.
~Joshua Sigmund
When Area Central Homicide Detective Dan Gorman was serving in the Marine Corps Reserves in 2001, he felt the calling. He felt a similar calling when he was in high school and want- ed to join the military. “But my mom kicked the recruiter out of
the house,” Gorman recalled.
It was instances during his training in Camp Pendleton in
Twentynine Palms, California and his Reserve Unit in Glenview that all helped Gorman realize what he wanted to do with his life. “In the military, I was not really considering local law enforce- ment,” Gorman said. “However, contacts with the military police changed that. I saw that they were disciplined, professional and
firm. They didn’t F around.”
As a reservist, Gorman was ready for any deployment but was
never activated. Two weeks after being discharged, 9/11 hap- pened, so he put his military proficiency into the job.
“The drill instructors I had believed in discipline more than being gung ho,” Gorman explained. “I brought that to this job. It taught me to think, to communicate with all different types of peo- ple, from civilians to those within your own chain of command.”
And he only elevated that skill in serving the Department.
“Military and law enforcement are the same in many aspects,” he continued. “When you think about it, on some of these local battlegrounds in this city, you are every bit the solider.”
~Mitchell Krugel
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ NOVEMBER 2015 31
DAN GORMAN
ROBERT GARCIA