Dozens of law enforcement and emergency first responders gathered in the Watsonville City Council Chambers Wednesday for a promotional and award ceremony honoring Watsonville police and employees, and a county prosecutor.
“The nature of our work requires us to be efficient, moving from call to call, incident to incident, critical task to critical task,” Interim Police Chief David Rodriguez told the crowd. “It’s not often that we get the opportunity to pause and take a moment to celebrate our accomplishments. Nor do we do the difficult work we do to gain praise. This does not negate the fact though that it’s of utmost importance to take this time to recognize the critical work that our people do day in and day out.”
Honorees
Promotions
Police Sgt. Monique Rangel
Program Coordinator Marco Estrada
Crime Analyst Adriana Flores
Police Media and Communications Specialist Adriana Flores
Awards
Adriana Alvarez, Stephanie Banderas, Octavio Barocio, Juan Castillo, Aaron Chavarria, Jay Garcia, David Gonzalez, Andres Gutierrez, Edgar Larios, Griselda Medina, Dominic Mercurio, Mathew Morales, Jose Navarro, Marcos Rios, Dianna Romero, Robert Strong, Collin Travers and Gustavo Zamora
Medal of Merit
Javier Ayala, Andres Gutierrez, Marcos Rios and Robert Strong
Duty Cross Medal
Robert Strong
Excellence in Prosecution
Pamela Dunlap
Officer Skip Prigge Exceptional Duty Medal
Aaron Chavarria
