Bernalillo County

Deputy Found Niche in DARE

Albuquerque Journal -  June 3, 2005

Bernalillo County Sheriff's Deputy Joe Bruno can count on one hand how many arrests he's made in the past decade. How many he has prevented, is immeasurable, his colleagues say.

For the past 15 years, Bruno has been teaching DARE, a drug resistance education class, to elementary and middle school students in the unincorporated areas of Bernalillo County.

Sheriff's officials say he is one of the longest lasting DARE officers to teach the curriculum since it was instituted in New Mexico in 1987. And recently he taught his last class.

This month, the 51-year-old Albuquerque man is retiring. Sheriff's officials estimate Bruno has taught DARE to about 20,000 Bernalillo County kids. "In Joe's case, you don't calculate success by the number of people he has arrested in his career," said Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White. "Because of Joe, hundreds of kids walked away from school with a diploma instead of in handcuffs."

When Bruno first became a deputy in 1981, he didn't figure that his career would end in the classroom. Like most rookie cops, he started out on the streets. He later became a detective, then a drill instructor at the department's academy. The entire time, Bruno said he was looking for his "niche."

It came when he and the department were looking for more officers to teach DARE to school children. The one officer who was doing it was overworked and needed help. Bruno volunteered and within minutes he was assigned to the DARE unit.

Right away, colleagues say, Bruno was a natural, using jokes and lots of hugs. And he taught the classes wearing a gun and a badge every day. "There is a knack for being able to make these kids not view you as a cop," said Sgt. Duncan Sanchez, Bruno's supervisor. "Only certain people can do that. Joe has that knack. He gets kids attention. He is a teacher in a cop's uniform."

When he first started teaching DARE, Bruno said he would take it "personal" whenever he saw one of his former students got in trouble. Since then, he realizes that he has little control. "Just because a kid does dope or drinks beer doesn't make them a bad kid," he said. "It makes them a kid that made a bad choice.

"Early on, it was frustrating," he said. "I would get upset whenever I would see a kid do something that was contrary to what we were teaching them."

One of his former students got a job at the Sheriff's Department as a public service aide. And on several occasions, Bruno has run into his former students at malls, gas stations and sporting events. On most occasions, they stop him, call him Bruno and give him a hug. "These kids don't want to know how much I know," he said. "They want to know how much I care."

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