PEORIA — There was no bulky bulletproof vest. No service weapon on the hip. No belt of tools around the waist.
No, on Thursday, May 14, in a temporary office on the bottom floor of the Peoria Police Department headquarters, Peoria Police Chief Eric Echevarria looked far different than the ex-Marine police officer who led the city’s police department the past five years.
‘Just Eric’
Donning light blue sweatpants, a matching shirt and a gold chain, the person who spoke at length with the Journal Star just one day before his retirement from policing would be made official was not Peoria Police Chief Eric Echeverria, or “Chief” as many in the community had come to know him. This, as he says, was “just Eric,” and Eric was ready to retire.
For the past 27 years, Echevarria has been a police officer. The first 22 years of his career were spent in his hometown on the Elgin police force, the last five in Peoria as its chief of pPolice. It’s been a 24/7 job that Echevarria says he gave everything to.
If there was a shooting scene somewhere in Peoria at 2 a.m., Echevarria was there. A chief cannot, as he says, lead from an office or a desk.
“I have always been Eric, let me say that upfront. I am not Chief Echevarria, that’s my title at this job, that’s the title that pays my bills, that’s the title that puts food on my family’s table and puts shoes on my kids, a police officer … but I’ve always been Eric, but I now need to figure out who Eric is retired,” Echevarria said. “Not who Eric was as a chief. And that was what I needed to figure out as a chief because Eric wasn’t a chief before. So, who is Eric retired and what does Eric like and what’s Eric’s schedule going to look like?”
The non-stop nature of his approach to the job, however, took a toll on him. It’s been years since he had a good night of sleep, years since he has been able to be away from his work cellphone and years since he has been able to be the father and husband his family needed.
Chief Echevarria, 52, is ready, and eager, to be “just Eric.” What will Eric do in his retirement? Well, that’s something he says he will need to figure out.
“You work a lifetime thinking, you know, ‘hey, one day I’ll get to this date where I’m going to retire,’ and the date is here and really first and foremost I want to rest. It’s been five years of not much sleep, if you will, and what it looks like is just being healthy and spending a lot of time with my family,” Echevarria said.
First on Eric’s agenda, getting a full night of sleep. After that, he says being present for his family, specifically his son, who is about to begin high school, is the top priority. After that, Eric wants to learn the piano and maybe even take some vocal lessons. He wants to paint and he wants to write a book about his life and career.
Eric is relaxed. He smiled a lot. Retirement, although it hadn’t quite began yet, was a concept that made Eric happy.
Echevarria has been working since he was 11-years-old, he said. He’s delivered newspapers, he worked at McDonald’s, a body shop and then served in the Marines, all prior to his 27-year career as an officer. Retirement is a very foreign concept.
The son of Puerto Rican immigrants who had Echevarria at ages 19 and 17, Echevarria says he long ago “outkicked” his coverage in life and made it farther than he ever expected to.
A number he still holds onto tightly is the 2.65 GPA he sported in high school. To get where he wanted to go, he knew he would have to work. And so, he did.
“I never claimed to be the smartest person in the room, but I will tell you, you wasn’t going to outwork me, right?” Echevarria said. “Work and determination. Things you learn growing up from parents, core values you learn in the military, the Marine Corps specifically. Those are things that stick with you and you do your best and do the best that you can.”
There is no way to know if it should be called fate or just a funny coincidence, but when Echevarria was sworn into the Elgin Police Department he was given a badge number. A badge number he carried for more than 20 years as an officer. That badge number: 265. The same digits of the GPA he sported in high school.
“Elgin Police Department was my foundation in law enforcement to where I became a chief of police here,” Echevarria says. “Everything I learned, everything I did all those years was my bootcamp. Preparing me for Peoria, unbeknownst to me. I carried a badge number with me all those years. My badge number was 265. My GPA was 2.65. I don’t believe in randomness, I don’t believe in coincidence.
“What I believe is there is a divine intervention in this world and I’ve always believed and, maybe I can speak more freely about this now than I have before, I believe there is a higher power and I am going to have to give an account to someone someday, hence why I always wanted to work hard,” Echevarria continued. “But yes, that 2.65 was my foundation when I walked in and I carried that number all those years.”
One of the things Echevarria is sure he wants to do in retirement is write a book on his life. The title of that book … “2.65.”
Echevarria discusses crime in Peoria during tenure
While the Journal Star was interviewing “just Eric” in that basement office, “Chief Echevarria,” the cop Peoria had come to know over the past five years, was still very much in that room. When asked questions about crime in Peoria, gun crimes and specifically the youth crime epidemic that has plagued the city, he quickly transformed back into the chief. The passion for policing that gave him drive in Peoria the past five years came back out.
When Echevarria came to the Peoria Police Department in July 2021, the city was in the middle of what would eventually be the deadliest year in its history. Peoria saw a record 34 homicides that year, shattering the previous record of 25 set in 2019.
Echevarria knew he had to work quickly to make changes. The community, exhausted by the violence, demanded it of him.
Some of the changes required were obvious and easy. When Echevarria took over as chief, the department still had detectives sharing flip phones for their jobs, the most notable technology lapse at a department Echevarria said was far behind where it needed to be in utilizing technology.
The technology changes included upgraded smart phones for detectives, license plate readers in squad cars and around the city, camera technology and a host of others. Those changes came fairly swiftly and easily as the Peoria City Council, Echevarria said, never said no to any new technology request he made.
“Every police officer now has technology that belongs to the city in their hands, on their uniforms. You look out the window, you look at the technology in our squad cars, LPRs in the cars, LPRs in the street,” Echevarria said. “A 100% clearance rate last year (for homicides), great work, great training, but really the work that our officers do … find me another department that has this caliber. I know every chief wants to say that about theirs, but I’ll bet mine against theirs.”
But, there was another major change that needed to happen in Peoria, a city rocked and fatigued by an incredibly violent 2021 and 2022 that saw another 24 homicides. The Peoria Police Department’s relationship with the community needed to change. That however, would require much more sweat equity, not just a vote of yes from elected officials.
Echevarria is thankful, he said for the way the Peoria community embraced him and took to the department overall in a different light. The community’s recognition of him, and its overall positive attitude toward him over the last five years, is one of the things he said surprised him most about Peoria.
Peoria, he says, will always be a home to him. Echevarria considers himself a “dual-citizen” between Elgin and Peoria.
“Places I go and just the amount of people that will stop me and say ‘thank you’ it is tremendous, and I think that’s really been really eye opening,” Echevarria said. “I’ve been able to really reflect on that lately and some people remind me, I go to lunch with — “
Sitting in the interview room that day with Echevarria and the Journal Star was Peoria Police Officer Chris Collins, who felt the need to chime in when this came up.
“I need to add in, I always interrupt him,” Collins said. “Make sure you add this in … Eric Echevarria has earned the right to be called a Peorian. This is his city. He earned it. He put in the work. It was genuine. It was real. It was authentic. I am certain we are going to see him back in the city again visiting. He has earned that right. He is a Peorian from here on out.”
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Former Peoria police chief reflects on career, retirement and crime fighting
Reporting by JJ Bullock, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
