Detective Arelis Rivera: Norcross Police's 'Secret Weapon'

The Norcross Police Department has eight bilingual, Spanish-speaking employees. Two of them were just sworn in at the city council meeting last week.

But there's one that sticks out more than the others. 

Detective Arelis Rivera is what Police Chief Warren Summers refers to as the department's "secret weapon" in connecting with the Hispanic population of the city. 

Last fall, the chief noticed a spike in armed robberies and home invasions targeting the Hispanic community. Many of these crimes were going unreported, too. 

"When we go out to these calls, we would have people say, 'Oh that happened to my neighbor,'" said Rivera, replaying the re-occurring scene. "'Did your neighbor call police?' 'No, they're afraid, they don't want to call the police.'" 

Rivera counted the reasons why this demographic, which makes up 40 percent of the city's population, fears dialing 911. Oftentimes they can't trust the police in the countries they come from, so that stigma is brought over to the U.S. Second, there's a language barrier, and third, they're afraid because they may not have the right immigration status.

The chief tried to think of ways to get closer to the Hispanic community to lessen their fears of the police department and to get them involved. So Summers put Rivera, who was in the force for nine years in Chicago and two years in Norcross, in charge of the initiative. 

"He said, 'Go out and conquer'," she recalled. "'Go out and do what you have to do.'"

In addition to her usual duties in the crime suppression unit as an undercover detective, she took the project on with full force. She started connecting with different leaders in the community, everyone from pastors to business owners to the managers of apartments that were prone to reported incidents.

With a bacherlor's in communication and master's in education, she realized how useful the media can be, too. Univision, Telemundo and Mundo Hispanico all ran pieces on the police's new outreach with the Hispanic community. At the beginning of the year, Rivera also went to radio stations, particularly La Raza, which plays Mexican music, and La Mega, which plays genres such as reggaeton, salsa and bachata from other Latino countries. She started out as a weekly on-air guest, and now she does it once a month.  

"The radio said, 'Sure, we'd love to help you out. This is our goal, too,' Rivera said. "I feel so welcome when I go. It's a lot of fun, and it's been very successful."

When she's on-air, she discusses safety and police topics such as how to protect oneself from home invaders, why it's important to put money in the bank and how to avoid being scammed by sharks in court. 

Another project that the she and other officers are assisting with is the Gateway International Music and Food Festival. Now in its third year in Norcross, the November event brings together cultures from all over the world through food vendors, musicians, dances and more. 

The police department has teamed up with the Gwinnett Village Community Alliance to help program the festival and market it so that it truly brings everyone together. They've brought on dancers from Korea, Bulgaria and Ireland; there's a popular salsa band performing; and they're working with the area's businesses, whether they're Columbian, Venezuelan or Salvadorian, to sell $1 samples of their food and offer other services. 

"We're hoping that it'll help us solidify that we want to bring the communities together," she said.

With everything going on, there's still much more that the Norcross Police Department is doing for its Hispanic outreach. Rivera helps run the Norcross Police's Spanish Facebook page, and the department is making sure there's at least one spanish-speaking employee working at all times. 
 
They've also held Spanish-only seminars on safety, and this month, the department is offering its first-ever Spanish citizens police academy course. The weekly class covers what regular Norcross officers would normally learn in the academy, including drug investigations, criminal investigations, what to do at a crime scene, how the computer system works, traffic stops and search warrants. 

"[It covers] things that they can not only learn and understand, but the reasons we do the things we do and why we follow certain procedures so they can go back and tell them, 'This is why [the police] do this,'" Rivera said.

The department has taken steps to learn about the U Visa, too, which is allows immigrants or illegal immigrants who are victims of crimes to apply for U.S. status.

"If they're a victim of a crime, we have no problem doing a U Visa, where other agencies and other cities are not as receptive to it, because they're feeling like, 'Oh, we're giving these people a free ride,'" Rivera explained. "The whole idea is to have them here, to witness or testify or to help the police convict some of these people."

With all of these different opportunities, Chief Summers has a goal to see a drastic improvement in connecting with the Hispanic community of 12 to 18 months. If they need more time, Summers will extend it. 

"He's not giving it any limits, but he has no time limit," said Rivera. "It's going to take some time, but we'll get there. There's no way that we're not going to get there. If other cities can do it, certainly the city of Norcross can do it." 

And with it all, Rivera definitely stays busy, which she doesn't mind at all.

"I have a lot of energy right now, and I'm going to use that energy until I can't anymore," she said. "I feel like I have a 25-year-old's energy, and I'm 50."

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