2019 Ethics Award Winners

Anthony Rogers, Kansas City Missouri PD

Has been the primary training instructor for basic and advanced training levels in ethics and fair and impartial policing courses since 2014.  His dedication follows in not only throughout his professional career but his personal life as well.  His goal is to continually modify the department’s culture to always reflect:

• Leadership qualities in everyone and what it means to be a leader regardless of rank or status.
• Strong ethical values in how we serve the citizens in our community and the examples we set for each other and all those close to us.
• Fairness and impartial treatment of everyone we come into contact with.
• To show absolute respect for those we serve, those around us and to set the bar high as an example for others to follow.
• To always, regardless of the situation or influences, make the best moral-based decisions both internally and externally.
• To always keep in mind that betraying any of the above will undermine the relationships and trust we have with our community and jeopardize public trust and the legitimacy the public gives us to enforce the law and provide justice.

Anthony is one of those people that no matter what is going on around him, how he feels physically or how busy he is, he always has a smile on his face, a can-do attitude and a positive outlook.  Anthony sets the bar higher for himself than he expects for others and lives and practices what he teaches.

Gabriel Betanzos, Long Beach Police Department

Officer Betanzos is an 11-year veteran of the Long Beach Police Department.  He is currently assigned to the Patrol Bureau as a Police Resource Officer (PRO). He serves as a critical link between the community and our Department, promoting our Community Oriented Public Safety (COPS) efforts, and serving as a liaison with residents, the various business communities, council district staff and community-based organizations.  Officer Betanzos works together with the community and other City of Long Beach Departments, such as the Fire, Code Enforcement, Public Works, and the Department of Health and Human Services to combat crime and address quality of life issues.  This team effort has created a spirit of cooperation in our community that has reduced crime, the fear of crime, and improved the relationship our Department has with our community. 

Officer Betanzos embodies our Department core values of Ethics (doing the right things), Intelligence (doing things right) and Respect (treating people right).   He treats all people with respect, fairness and compassion.  Examples include something as simple as ensuring someone who was arrested puts on a pair of shoes before walking out to the police car or helping someone experiencing homelessness with getting the services they so desperately need.  Officer Betanzos does have a soft spot in his heart for children and has, on numerous occasions, donated shoes, clothing, and books to students at our local middle schools.  Many children in our community are wearing new comfortable shoes or a new warm sweatshirt, thanks to Officer Betanzos. 

Officer Betanzos goes above and beyond, serving as a mentor to many less experienced officers within his division.  He partners with these officers for several weeks, to help them gain valuable knowledge and experience on COPS strategies, including decentralized decision-making, problem solving techniques and he stresses the importance of well written, accurate and complete reports.  He leads by example, modeling positive behavior and demonstrating the highest standards of professional performance.

Naomi Broughton, Deputy Chief, Charleston Police Department

Naomi has truly personified duty and honor over her past 34 years of the force, proving her to be an outstanding candidate for this award. She has excelled in her crime fighting efforts, leading change inside the Department by breaking barriers as a woman in a southern police jurisdiction, supporting LGBTQ efforts by creating safe spaces in the community, leading panel discussions and promoting dialogue inside the Department and the City as a whole, resulting in new policies, training, and acknowledgement in the media.  She has also acted as Incident Commander for several special events and led the Department and city staff through countless hurricanes.

Naomi embodies the core values of integrity, respect, fairness and service.  She has not only served the public through her time in law enforcement, but also through her twenty-three years of serve as a Chief Marine Science Technician in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve.

Her fairness and respect are consistently shown through her treatment of her colleagues and the community at large.  As the first female captain at the Charleston Police Department, Naomi has shown immense respect for diversity and has advocated for the role of law enforcement in promoting cultural diversity and treating all persons with compassion, tolerance, and dignity.  She has advocated for hate crime legislation in South Carolina on behalf of the Charleston Police Department, and represented the Department in many national and international exchanges programs including Australia, Holland Israel and throughout the United States.

Frederick Washington, New York City Police Department

Freddy Washington was appointed to the NYPD in January 2005.  Within a year, which is almost unheard of, Police Officer Washington was promoted to Detective due to his work on patrol making arrests and as the 42 Pct “School Car”, getting to know the students, teachers, and administrators of 51 schools in the 4-2, one of the city’s poorest and most challenged neighborhoods.

Detective Washington is a 24/7 cop.  He is the most compelling candidate for an award like this one.

Detective Washington has redefined the relationship between police and the public. His focus has been on the youth, but he has gotten the community---the entire community---involved in not just being policed, but by the standard set by Sir Robert Peel that “the police are the people and the people are the police.” As a Neighborhood Community Officer (NCO) Detective Washington conducts “Build a Block” meetings where people on an individual street or block can come out a define their concerns as well as their needs to the police. These meetings in other parts of the city typically bring between 20 and fifty people. Detective Washington’s meetings bring out 250 to 450 people. No officer has achieved such broad participation from so many parts of the community. At those meetings, Detective Washington speaks candidly about the crime around the neighborhood and what police are doing about it and in turn, he gets input from the neighbors about their concerns whether it is the local drug dealer or quality of life problems that other city agencies are not addressing. From there, Detective Washington goes to work. He is a dynamo and a problem solver. It keeps people coming back. His NYPD cell phone buzzes all days with calls from the elderly, emails from school officials and texts from kids and an army of confidential informants. When a five-year-old boy was shot in the head, the boy’s father called Detective Washington before he called 911. Detective Washington lit of his network in the streets. Within 24 hours he had the name of the gunman and the 42 Pct Detective Squad had him in custody. Detective Washington has set a new bar for community policing, precision policing, even custom policing.

Detective Washington has become a role model for one of the most complex communities in the South Bronx. In the streets made infamous by movies like “Fort Apache”, and where division between the community and the police spanned issues of trust, race, and fear, Detective Washington has plied his unique brand of policing by a single standard: He treats everyone in the same manner. He introduces himself to the known criminals and begins a dialogue. He has reached out to 51 pastors and houses of worship. He has imbedded himself as a constant presence in the four schools that occupy his five square mile patch called Sector Charlie and he has made himself the go-to guy for police service because of the mutual trust he has developed as well as the mutual respect in a community where dignity is sometimes the last and only thing some people have. Detective Washington understands that people in the 4-2, particularly the youth do not always view the police in the way that they might in areas with less difficult histories of violence and fewer challenges with police and trust. These interactions with hundreds of kids have opened eyes, sparked dialogue and caused people---police and students---to question how they view each other and why. Building trust, one kid at a time has made “Freddy” someone who every kid knows and respects, because he respects them as well.

Detective Washington grew up in the Bronx. He lives there still, long after he could have moved to the suburbs. He has a real sense of the community because he comes from the Bronx. As an African-American teenager, he had encounters with the police. As an African American police officer, he has seen both sides of the dynamics that often divide police and the communities. He has managed to win the trust of his superiors, the trust of his partners, the trust of the community, its kids and even part of the criminal element in those streets because everyone regards Freddy as an honest broker who is caring, but can be tough, but always fair.

Freddy does not have an “off” switch. The phone rings and buzzes. He always picks up. He has a kid of his own for whom he sets an example at home, but at night, during school breaks, in the summer, Freddy is running basketball games, play-streets, school events with the police, and getting jobs for at-risk youth. When he went to the mayor’s office of criminal justice and asked for help with jobs, the coordinator told him “Bring in the applications, we’ll find the jobs”. Freddy came down with 52 applications.

Jerome Pacarro, Sergeant, Honolulu Police Department

Sergeant Pacarro is the epitome of a law enforcement officer.  He leads his team of officers toward building relationships throughout the community with the goal of promoting goodwill and public trust.  His superior leadership style and diligent work performance creates a positive and constructive work environment for the officers; he leads by example. Additionally, his dedication to his family and personal commitment to the community speaks volumes of his ethics and good morals.

In early 2017, Sergeant Pacarro was asked to supervise the Honolulu Police Department’s (HPD) District 7 Community Policing Team (CPT). Sergeant Pacarro was chosen because of his ability to lead while mentoring his subordinates, his reputation to get things done, and his persona to work cooperatively and collaboratively with fellow officers and other HPD units as well as with the public.  Sergeant Pacarro willingly took on the job knowing he would have only four officers to accomplish numerous tasks.

He leads the smallest CPT in the department; however, through his organized management style and his guiding and mentoring of officers, his team of four officers are doing what a larger team of eight would accomplish.

He had led his CPT in conducting 38 Safety Presentation, Career Days and Keiki (children) Identification events.  District 7 CPT has also partnered with various community and business groups and held 13 Community Traffic Awareness Partnerships (C-TAP) events. Large groups of young adults and community members worked together in sign-waving and participated in group discussions.

Sergeant Pacarro is a strong supporter of “Coffee with a Cop,” a program designed to bridge the gap between the community and patrol officers providing opportunity to come together and discuss community concerns. District 7’s CPT conducted Neighborhood Security Watch (NSW) and Business Security Watch (BSW) recruitment events.  The District 7 CPT currently oversees 74 NSW and BSW programs which include an impressive 1,504 households, 109 businesses, and 4,048 members. These security watch groups promote a working partnership between the community and the department.

These and many other examples are why Sergeant Pacarro deserves this award.  He leads his team of officers and his family by example. He personally exhibits and encourages others to be ethical and be guided by good moral standards.  It is said that action speaks louder than words and this is true of Sergeant Pacarro’s leadership qualities. He has earned the respect of his officers and his family members.  His developments of and participation in community events/programs promote good will and public trust.