Frank Lucero is new Los Lunas Police Department chief

LOS LUNAS — From playing cops and robbers as a child to being the chief of the Los Lunas Police Department, Frank Lucero said whether the DARE officers at his school or his favorite WWE wrestler, he always looked up to law enforcement.

Lucero officially took over the reins of the department at the end of January from Naithan Gurule, who retired after 20 years of service. Deputy Chief Vince Torres also retired from the department in December.

“It’s a little bit different when you’re the one that people are looking to for certain answers, advice and certain things like that,” Lucero said about his transition to chief. “That’s been a big adjustment for me.”

Lucero started at Los Lunas Police Department in 2006 after a short stint with the Valencia County Sheriff’s Office. He said it was always a given to work and protect the community he called home.

“I decided early on in my law enforcement career that I wanted to work in the community that I lived in,” he said. “If I was going to risk my safety and go through with the completion of the academy and becoming certified, I wouldn’t want to do it for any other community, because I care more about this community than any other community.”

When deciding to go into law enforcement, Lucero applied to both LLPD and VSCO, but first received a job offer as a deputy sheriff, working the night shift. While on a call at a SWAT situation in Peralta, he ran into Gurule, who questioned why he hadn’t applied with the LLPD. Lucero replied he had, just never received a call back.

“And moments after that, my recruiting officer from Los Lunas PD shows up. It happens to be (now) Sheriff Denise Vigil. She was in charge of my application,” Lucero said. “We get to talking and (Gurule) goes, ‘Are you still interested?’ I go, ‘Yeah, that was actually my preference.’”

Within a week, Lucero had an interview with then-chief Nick Balido and assistant chief David Gurule. Gurule told Lucero, in his famous verbiage, “We’ll be getting a hold of you; don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

Lucero said he had only gotten about a half mile down the road before he was offered a patrolman position with the Los Lunas Police Department.

“I’ve worn a lot of hats throughout the years and I’ve had a lot of experience that I feel have made me a well-rounded leader here,” Lucero said. “The experience that I have been afforded, it certainly will help me in my leadership role as the chief because it’s giving me a really good idea about what everybody here does and what I can do to help improve their efficiency and make their jobs easier.”

In his leadership position, Lucero wants to spend time learning more about the needs of the department to improve efficiency. He also wants to loop in officers in the decision process to increase internal fairness and transparency.

“The way I see it, the easier I can make things for the officers, the more time they can spend out on the street serving the members of our community,” he said.

He added bolstering partnerships with not only the community, but also other local law enforcement agencies to tackle profession-wide issues such as recruitment and retention is high priority for him.

“I hope I can further bridge the gap between the department and the community so the community understands their police department is accessible to them,” Lucero said. “We care about the community. We hold our officers to an incredibly high standard and we hold ourselves accountable. We’re here to help the community no matter how big or small the problem might be.”

Lucero gave a big thanks to city leadership, former chiefs Naithan Gurule and Nick Balido, former deputy chief Vince Torres and former Valencia County Sheriff Richard Perea for helping him in his journey to become the new Los Lunas police chief.