Police captain retires after three decades of service

After exactly 28 years with the Merced Police Department, Capt. Tom Trindad retired his badge this week.

On Monday, he sat at his desk for the last time, reminiscing on the many hats he has worn throughout his career in law enforcement.

Before joining Merced’s police force in 1987, Trindad, 51, served as a campus patrolman at Merced College and a reserve with the Livingston Police Department, and worked in corrections with the Sheriff’s Department.

His interest in law enforcement, he shared, began at 16, when he joined Merced’s Explorer Scout Program.

“When I went on a ridealong with one of the deputies, I was in heaven ... that’s when I knew this was the career I wanted,” he said.

At the Merced Police Department, he’s held various ranks and has been part of different units. He did a stint as a canine handler and was one of the first officers to form part of the department’s Gang Violence Suppression Unit before becoming a sergeant with the Intelligence Unit dealing with gangs.

Because of his work with gang violence he has been tapped by counties across the state to testify in court as a Norteño gang expert. The opportunity, Trindad said, provided him a better understanding of the gang problem in areas outside Merced. In November 2013, he was promoted from lieutenant to captain.

Reflecting on his career, Trindad noted the changes he’s seen in the field. In the 1980s and 1990s, he explained, officers were trained to “get tough on crime and get out there and arrest.”

But people are changing, he said.

“Society wants us to practice more rehabilitation and be more understanding, to be more like social workers,” he said. “And that will take some time.”

Trindad graduated from Atwater High School in 1983 and earned his bachelor’s degree in social science from Chapman University. He also has a master’s degree in criminology, law and society from the University of California, Irvine.

Trindad said some his proudest contributions include his involvement in keeping the department ahead in technology. He helped bring to the department body cameras and predictive policing, the use of analytics to identify potential criminal activity.

The Merced police veteran plans to spend a lot of his free time with his family. For one, he will spend the holidays with his wife and two adult children, he said. Officers, he explained, are used to celebrating holidays on alternative dates because they are often on duty.

“There are so many things you miss,” Trindad said. “This is such a demanding career. We serve the people and therefore they sometimes come first, and I had to put my family on the back burner,” he said.

Something Trindad would have liked to see more during his career is the public’s participation in helping find solutions to some of the city’s hot issues. It takes a village, not just law enforcement, to better a community, he said.

“As great as they are and as much as they volunteer, police sometimes get put into the driver’s seat of issues and problems,” he said. “Take the gang problem for example; it’s not just up to the Police Department to solve this.

“Even though we should be part of the solution, we should not be the only answer.”

This story was originally published December 25, 2015 at 2:01 PM with the headline "Police captain retires after three decades of service."