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McALLEN — The day McAllen’s first Hispanic police chief, a transformative figure in Rio Grande Valley law enforcement, died, the city broke ground on the department’s current headquarters.
Alejandro Romero Longoria, who died on Dec. 19, 2000, at the age of 53, never stepped foot in the building.
On Thursday, officials in McAllen unveiled a plaque in that building honoring Longoria who is credited with spearheading the spirit of cooperation between law enforcement agencies in Hidalgo County.
“Today we are here to remember and honor a brave, dedicated McAllen police chief who helped lead the department by example and created a culture of professionalism in our police department,” Mayor Javier Villalobos said.
According to retired Mission Police Chief Leo Longoria, Alejandro reached out to him when Leo was first appointed chief to collaborate on numerous projects that were regional.
“I looked up to him. He mentored me. He encouraged me to continue to take on endeavors and to move forward in new modern policing concepts,” Leo said.
Leo believes McAllen was the leading edge of the policing concepts in the Valley.
Alejandro collaborated with Leo in changing radio frequencies to the 800 megahertz trunking system in order to utilize particular channels that were emergent with the Mission Police Department’s in case of emergencies.
They also created a records management system to share criminal information with each other.
Following his collaboration with Leo, both he and Alejandro collaborated with the city of Brownsville and Chief Ben Reyna.
Leo added that Alejandro was always fighting to unite most of the local agencies for the betterment of the community in the Valley.
“It was a great honor to work alongside Chief Alex Longoria,” Leo said.
Veronica Longoria, an 18-year veteran at the Mission Police Department and Alejandro’s daughter, added to the list of her father’s accomplishments.
She mentioned that he helped establish the D.A.R.E and G.R.E.A.T. programs as well as several community programs.
Veronica stated that her father never wanted her to be a police officer because he was protective of her, saying that being on the force entails seeing things you don’t easily come back from.
But she pursued the career all the same.
“I just wish I could, you know, meet up to some of his expectations,” she said as tears streamed down her cheeks.
Maria Margarita Longoria, Alejandro’s 74-year-old widow, described her late husband as having a dry sense of humor and one would never know when he was joking.
“He had this robust way of laughing,” Maria laughed. “With Alex, there was no hidden agenda. If he was happy, everybody knew he was happy. If he was not happy, everybody knew he wasn’t happy.”
They met when Maria was 14 and were married by the time she was 21. Their marriage lasted 31 years and two weeks.
Maria said Alejandro was worried about Veronica joining the force because he knew what she’d have to go through, but when Veronica expressed her interest and love for the job, Maria let it go.
When asked how she felt about her husband and all his accomplishments, tears swelled up at the edges of her eyes as she reminisced.
“I’m just overwhelmed with all kinds of emotions,” Maria said. “Happy, sad but very, very proud of him. Very proud of him.”
