‘Last chief’ of Mercedes resigns after nine months on the job

The lawman who last fall billed himself as the “last chief that Mercedes will have” has stepped down after just nine months leading the Mercedes Police Department.

His departure makes him the sixth chief to briefly head, then leave, the department since 2019.

The city of Mercedes announced the departure of Pedro Estrada in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

“It is with great regret that we announce the resignation of Pedro Estrada as the Police Chief, effective immediately,” the statement reads.

“We appreciate his dedicated service to the department and the community during his tenure as Police Chief. We wish him well in his future endeavors,” the statement further reads.

Assistant Police Chief Francisco “Frank” Sanchez has been appointed interim chief, the city said.

“He has been a valuable member of the department for many years and we are confident in his ability to lead the department during this transition period,” the statement reads.

Estrada’s resignation comes almost nine months to the day after Mercedes Municipal Judge Juan Alvarez administered the oath of office to him during a well-attended ceremony at Mercedes City Hall on Aug. 5, 2022.

Mercedes selected Estrada as police chief to help bring stability to a department that had already seen a laundry list of leaders come and go since the retirement of longtime Chief Olga Maldonado in the summer of 2019.

Estrada pledged to be the end of the short-timers.

“Hopefully I am — and will be — the last chief that Mercedes will have. There is gonna be no more. I am very positive of that,” Estrada said shortly after his swearing in last fall.

Estrada had hoped to bring stable leadership back for the department’s uniformed officers, but also to rebuild the community’s trust, which had been fractured by several years of tensions with the department.

Perhaps the most public example of those frayed relationships came in September 2019, when four Mercedes residents were arrested during a Mercedes City Commission meeting on the order of then-Police Chief Dagoberto “Dago” Chavez.

A fifth resident, Israel Coronado, was arrested in December 2019, shortly after declaring his candidacy for mayor.

Coronado was charged with disrupting a public meeting — but not the meeting he had just departed at the time of his arrest. Instead, he was charged in connection with his attendance at the same September 2019 meeting as the others.

“Hopefully I am — and will be — the last chief that Mercedes will have. There is gonna be no more. I am very positive of that,” Estrada said shortly after his swearing in last fall.

The Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office later dropped the charges against Coronado and another of the residents arrested, Aileen Luna.

Last year, Luna’s mother, Velda Garcia, and brother, Noel Rodriguez, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of interfering with public duties in exchange for probation.

The remaining resident, Dalia Peña — who referred to Chavez as “a drunk” as she walked out of the 2019 meeting — is set to go to trial in June on a misdemeanor charge of interfering with public duties.

Chavez stepped down in December 2020, just a year-and-a-half as Mercedes police chief.

Next came Juan Macias, who came to the Queen City after retiring from the Mission Police Department, then Roy A. Quintanilha after his retirement from the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office.

In December 2021, longtime Mercedes police officer Blanca Sanchez was named interim chief — a capacity at which she served until Estrada’s appointment as chief in August 2022.

Estrada served with the Mercedes police department for about a year in total. He came to the department after more than two decades in law enforcement in Starr County.