After his retirement, former UTRGV Police Chief Raul Munguia passed on the torch to Adan Cruz, who plans to reinforce the relationship with and trust of the campus community.
UTRGV appointed the new chief of police on Feb. 21. Cruz served as the assistant chief of police before being promoted.
Cruz has worked in law enforcement for 30 years. He started his career at age 20 with the Texas Department of Public Safety.
In an interview with The Rider, Cruz said some qualifications he possesses for this job include his 26 years with the Texas DPS, where he retired as a captain of the criminal investigation’s division.
The new chief also graduated from legacy institution University of Texas at Brownsville in 2006 with a bachelor’s of arts in history and a minor in government.
Asked what the new appointment means to him, Cruz replied, “It’s an honor to get this job. I mean it’s a position that is important to the community, important to the Rio Grande Valley as a whole, because the university is an institution that covers and serves the whole Rio Grande Valley.”
Some of the goals Cruz has for the department include continuing to expand community engagement, working with officers to improve the bike patrol program and keeping the department fully staffed.
Cruz has been working with the UTRGV Police Department for three years.
“I really enjoy the work that I do with the officers, with our administration and it’s interesting,” he said.
Cruz said he anticipates the most challenging part of the job will be engaging with the community.
“The community engagement piece is always a challenge because we’re constantly working to, you know, improve on the relationship and trust that we have with the campus community,” Cruz said. “And it’s not a challenge in a bad way, it’s just something that we’re always working on.”
Asked what his favorite thing about working at UTRGV is, Cruz replied he enjoys working and interacting with the officers on a daily basis.
He said one of the most important lessons he has learned that will help him in this new position is communication.
“I’ve learned that being able to communicate with the people that you work with, to get your ideas across so that you can all work as a team and be moving in the same direction to accomplish your goals, is a big lesson,” Cruz said.
Munguia said he is in full support of Cruz.
“I believed that he was going to be a very good fit and he had the correct temperament for the type of policing that we want to accomplish there at the university,” Munguia said.
The former chief said the department has worked hard to establish integrity and morality and said that “by choosing Chief Cruz, we’re gonna stay on that same path.”
Some qualities Munguia said make Cruz the right choice for this position include his ability to connect with the officers.
“Just like myself, he keeps an open-door policy,” Munguia said. “The officers are actually very comfortable speaking with him and he also has that dynamic with the university faculty and staff.”
Asked what advice he has for the new chief, Munguia replied for Cruz to not change.
“He is what the university needs and just to keep on the same path that he’s been on,” he said.
On March 10, a badging ceremony for Cruz will take place on the Edinburg campus. The time and place for this event has yet to be confirmed.
Munguia retired Feb. 20 after serving as UTRGV’s inaugural chief since 2015.
His final message for the campus community was reassuring the campus will be fine.
“These last five years went by very, very quickly,” Munguia said. “I’m gonna miss the campus, but the campus is in good hands.”
