Seaside deputy chief commits to creating a caring environment
SEASIDE >> Nick Borges was on a fast track to trouble. He admitted, even then, to being raised by loving parents in a healthy household, but he somehow lost his grip on it and dove into delinquency.
At first, it felt kind of cool to defy authority. But soon, the teen couldn’t find his footing. He hung out with the wrong crowd, found himself frequently in trouble with the law. He ran from police, felt the cold rub of handcuffs around his wrists, saw the inside of a juvenile detention center.
And yet, today, Nick Borges is a deputy chief in the Seaside Police Department; with a record of service to his community.
“I still don’t have a clear understanding of what led me to become such an angry young man, who
was always getting in trouble. What I do know,” he said, “is once you’re in the system, it’s hard to get out. If you make another mistake, you find yourself getting in deeper.”
Borges also knows the exact moment his path changed and the epiphany that enabled him to make new life choices. While holding down a job at Bruno’s Market, he took a walk during his lunch break. Wandering the streets of Carmel, he came upon a tree, growing up through the middle of the road. Aware of the cliché, he realized he’d been presented with two paths; he could go left, or he could go right.
“I started thinking of my dad, said Borges, “who came from the Azores, Portugal to this county at 17, to create a better life. He washed cars, did landscaping and auctioning, but said he wanted more in life. Eventually became a firefighter. After almost 30 years in the fire service, he retired as a captain.”
Paving the path
Borges knew he could do more, had to do more with his life. He turned right.
“I made the decision,” he said, “to become a juvenile probation officer. I wanted to work with kids who are trouble, to share my story with them, and help change their lives.”
Borges completed Pacific Grove Community High School six months ahead of schedule and went to Monterey Peninsula College, with his sights set on enrolling in their police academy.
One month after he joined the police academy, “911” came crashing down on the country.
“That kind of terrorism to our country changed my whole perspective, my whole paradigm,” Borges said. “Here I was, just a month into my training, and I knew I wanted to be on the front lines of something that threatens our country, our community. After all those years of running from the police, I wanted to be the one who runs in.”
As a police officer, Borges believes he has established a reputation in the community as someone who fiercely upholds the law, yet also holds empathy for people who find themselves in the path of the train.
“Early in my career,” he said, “I was very aggressive as a police officer. If someone was threatening the wellbeing of my community, I was coming after them. But once I arrested them, it was human time. ‘Do you need a blanket, what’s your story, how can we change your life?’ It’s hard to change people’s lives, but by working with them, respecting them as a person, it’s possible.”
Time to run in
Nick Borges, 39, spends a lot of time talking with people who frequent the streets, sometimes to engage them, other times, to arrest them and, quite often, to do both. During the arrest of a man known to the department as a “frequent intoxication arrest,” Borges began asking him about his life — what he’d experienced, things he’d seen, what he knew. When the man spoke of the unsolved murder of a 19-yearold African American teen, stemming from a feud at Del Monte Manor in 1969, Borges paid attention.
“Del Monte Manor is the
largest low-income residence on the Peninsula,” Borges said. “Apparently a fight broke out, and the kid was cut at the neck. It took police 20 minutes to get through the crowd to render help, and the guy died. For 41 years, no one opened up the slim file on this case. What about his family? I couldn’t let it go.”
Borges made a commitment to the community and told himself he was going to solve this case. Whether or not he could bring someone to justice, he was determined to find out who committed the crime to help bring closure to the kid’s family. And so, he did — by meeting people, asking questions, listening to stories, making connections, never giving up.
“I had little more than passion and fire to work with, plus the sense I was doing the right thing,” Borges said. “I didn’t stop asking questions until I had answers. It was such a pivotal time in my career, and it felt great to be able to give closure to a family.”
After Borges solved the cold case, he was awarded Officer of the Year by the Seaside City Council. Later, when a detective position opened, he tested for it and, months later, became a detective. No matter where his work leads him, Borges has never lost sight of Del Monte Manor and the wellbeing of the people who live there.
Quite often, Borges, a father of two, will grab a cup of coffee and hang out at the Manor playground, talking with adults and giving stickers to kids. After he heard a mother tell her child to get out of the sand, so he wouldn’t bring home any more fleas, he took a serious look at the dilapidated playground, with its rusted slide and broken pieces of equipment that had been donated, already second hand, some 30 years prior.
First, Borges went to a sporting goods store and bought the kids a freestanding basketball hoop and some basketballs. Then he organized a committee among
Manor residents and the community to fundraise the $60,000 needed to build a new playground. After a few barbecues and some grantwriting, they met their goal, and the grounds had a grand opening in January, 2019.
“This project pulled an entire community together, and motivated them to renovate the entire property,” Borges said. “COVID has been a challenge, so the basketball hoop is down, and the playground is closed for now, but it’s beautiful. I can’t wait kids to be able to resume their play.”
Partners in community
Helen Rucker, 88, has lived around the corner from Del Monte Manor for 50 years. A champion for civil rights and community engagement, the celebrated community activist and former librarian believes she and Nick Borges are cut from the same cloth, each having had experiences that left them lacking love for the police. Yet through their acquaintance, they’re sensing a shift in sensibility.
And Rucker is well aware of Borges’ commitment to improving conditions at the Manor and throughout the community.
“Del Monte Manor has a real history of people getting killed there, and the police being called in to intervene,” Rucker said. “Nick has taken a special interest in the young people who are growing up there, and I know how much he’s done to urge them not to grow up into crime.”
Rucker was on the selection committee when Borges was up for deputy chief — the only at-large citizen on the committee among a line-up of police officers. The vote, she says, was overwhelmingly in his favor.
“Nick has done so much to bring a benevolent police presence into the community,” Rucker said. “He has shown that he cares about Seaside, and he puts his heart, his time, and his money into working to better this community.”