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Garland police lieutenant outlines neighborhood policing and PIO duties, recalls deadly tornado response
Summary
Lt. Pedro Barano, Garland Police Department public information officer, described neighborhood police duties, department staffing levels and social-media outreach, and recounted responding as PIO to a tornado that killed nine people.
Lieutenant Pedro Barano, the public information officer for the Garland Police Department, told the Garland Youth Council that neighborhood police officers are primarily proactive, building relationships with residents and targeting chronic problems in specific areas, while patrol officers respond to 911 calls.
"They are uniformed just like patrol... their primary responsibility is proactive police," Barano said, explaining that Garland has neighborhood police officers assigned to different areas so "every single area has its own personal police officer." He also described his PIO duties: "My job is to give interviews to the news... My job is information dissemination through the public." Barano listed the department's outreach channels, including Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Nextdoor and YouTube.
Barano provided staffing figures during his remarks, saying the department has about 357 police officers and about 40 lieutenants; he also said Garland assigns 16 neighborhood police officers to different areas. He discussed training for public speaking and described his role in large incidents, recounting a December tornado that struck nearby communities and killed nine people as an example of PIO responsibilities during major events.
Parks and recreation and other meeting attendees asked questions and Barano encouraged youth to consider public-safety careers, saying: "When you know what you're talking about, you're the expert." He described showing up and communicating as central to police work: "Showing up is the number 1 thing."
Barano's remarks were presented as part of the Youth Council's guest-speaker series; no policy decisions or departmental changes were proposed during the session.
