How retiring CSULB police chief Fernando Solorzano built trust with the campus community
Since he was a kid, Fernando Solorzano knew he wanted to be a police officer.
It started when his mother was attacked by a knife-wielding assailant in South Los Angeles. He was presented with a six-pack of photos of possible attackers and immediately identified No. 5 as the perfectly coiffed, large-eyed suspect.
From then on, he knew he wanted to pursue a career in law enforcement. His parents hoped he’d choose a white-collar job as an engineer, but he had already made up his mind.
“I knew I had that passion,” Solorzano remembers. “I wanted to be in law enforcement.”
What he might not have expected as a teenager more than 30 years ago is that he would spend his entire professional career at Cal State Long Beach, working his way up through the ranks, first as a student-assistant in parking, then, most recently, retiring as the campus’ police chief.
While he officially retired in December he continues to serve as chief while a successor is found.
In that time, the national narrative on what it means to police a community has changed. The relationships between sworn personnel and their communities have faced a reckoning nationwide over widespread and historical mistrust and abuses, particularly in communities of color.
At the same time during his tenure at The Beach, Solorzano has earned a reputation for building bridges between individuals, affinity groups, clubs and leadership.
He started that practice of bridge building as a patrol officer who would speak Spanish with members of the janitorial and maintenance crews who worked overnight and often couldn’t or wouldn’t communicate with police.
Such was the nature of policing a university campus at night that has fewer emergency calls than a busy municipality.
“I really believed in making those relationships,” said Solorzano '01. “I wasn’t chasing a radio call at 2 a.m. Don’t be afraid to get out of your car and go meet people. You don’t know how valuable those relationships are.”
Those connections Solorzano formed while first studying criminal justice as an undergrad and later working the night shift as a patrol officer endured decades with some of his former professors congratulating him when he became police chief in June of 2011.
Among the most candid and valuable feedback he’s received has been from students during Coffee with a Cop events and meeting with the Black Faculty and Staff Association, which reinforced the idea that trust building needs to serve as a cornerstone for police on campus.
“That opened my eyes to see and accept we have some (students) here with traumatic experiences,” he said of student and staff interactions with sworn officers off campus. “These kids look scared, they are scared. They’re afraid for what we stand for as enforcers. … It’s not my staff but their experiences outside here.”
That receptiveness is something that resonated with Terri Armstrong who serves as the parliamentarian for BFAS and works on campus as assistant director of University Outreach & School Relations. In her capacity with BFAS she has talked with Solorzano about the ways in which a college campus is different from those of city or county in policing. Armstrong said she feels the chief heard those concerns and hopes his successor expands on that legacy.
“This is an institute of learning and education. Police need to be just as open about learning in this environment as students,” Armstrong said. “He was so open to receiving that. He made it easy to have those conversations. We’ve felt heard. We felt understood.”
Part of that understanding is rooted in his own background, said Gracie Cole, who has studied and worked alongside Solorzano since he was a student at The Beach. She currently works as an administrative services manager at the University Police Department.
“I think he truly understands the work we do and he’s relatable to students,” she said of his approach. “He’s very humble and shares his upbringing with them. He can relate because he’s been in that situation.”
In his tenure, perhaps his most memorable moment was when a student came up to him to thank him for not ticketing him when the student incurred a traffic infraction.
“Working in higher education, it’s all about learning,” he said of his choice to educate the student driver over issue a ticket to someone on a shoestring budget. “Sometimes you don’t have to be hard on people and the message still gets across.”
