Gloria Perez is the new deputy chief of the Dallas Police Department’s Northeast Patrol Division, which includes most of our neighborhood. Perez was born in McAllen and raised in San Antonio, but her entire 28-year police career has been in Dallas. Perez entered the police academy the day her husband graduated. And since then, she’s held a variety of jobs. She was a patrol officer, field training officer, lieutenant commander, academy instructor, internal affairs commander, a fingerprint detective with the crime scene unit, a neighborhood police officer and a sergeant with facilities management overseeing construction of the Jack Evans Police Headquarters. “What’s so great about this career and this department is the opportunities you have,” she says. “I like the change and the challenges, and that’s what keeps me going. It keeps me young.” Holding all of those positions and working for many departments and deputy chiefs has given her invaluable perspective, she says. And she’s known most officers in the division for many years. Perez says she’s worked with chiefs who kept their distance from the ranks, and her division isn’t like that. Anyone from longtime veterans to rookies knows they can approach her with problems and concerns any time. In the new position, she also has more direct contact with the community, which she relishes. One of the division’s top concerns, Perez says, is crime in apartments. “We have more apartment complexes than any other division,” she says. “So you’re talking about having a higher concentration of people.” Apartment dwellers are less likely to be invested in the community because they are more transient than homeowners, she says. And management turnover often is high, which makes building rapport difficult. The division has started a youth flag football team called Positive Attitudes Seeking Success. It has about 17 players so far and cops from the division as coaches. Perez hopes to expand that program and other volunteer efforts in the community as a way to reach out to young people before they choose crime.