The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
City’s police chief is link to the past
Lorain Police Chief Cel Rivera is the last remaining vestige of the old Lorain Police Department.
Rivera, 67, of Wakeman, has been with the department for over 46 years, which makes him the longest serving officer in department history. And he has seen the department evolve over the years.
Despite his reticence to take credit for the change, Rivera has played an integral role in the advancement of the department having started the first SWAT team for the city, being part of the department’s first plainclothes squad known
as the “Shotgun Squad” and going out of his way to build and rebuild relationships between the department and the community.
When Rivera sat down with The Morning Journal over a two-week period in August, he told some stories of his time patrolling the streets and fighting crime.
Joining the force
It was Jan. 2, 1967, and 17-year-old Cel Rivera was walking to the bus stop. Having signed up for the military on his birthday the month before, he was now leaving for basic training.
Rivera said it was cold that day with lots of snow on the ground and when arrived at the station, not far from where his office is now, he sat down and began to feel bad for himself.
“I remember sitting there feeling like such a loser,” he said.
Rivera had recently quit school and was separated from his brothers and sisters. It was because of this that he signed up for the military and found himself on this bench.
According to Rivera, he was worrying at that point, as he was a smaller person at the time, whether he’d be able to do what would be asked of him should he be sent to Vietnam.
He got on the bus and trained in Fort Benning in Georgia before shipping off to the war.
“When my (high school) class was seniors, I was already a sergeant in Vietnam,” he said.
When Rivera returned as a 21-year-old vet he found himself at the same bus stop. He’d decided to go into law enforcement while serving in Vietnam and joined in 1971. He has stayed with the department ever since.
The ‘Shotgun Squad’
Rivera had been on the force for four years when the city was beset by a string of brazen armed robberies.
“They were robbing us every night,” Rivera said. “They were blatant and, kind of, in-your-face-type robberies.”
Rivera said the last one he remembers is when the suspects had robbed a pharmacy on Broadway with sawed off shotguns in hand and about 18 people on scene.
“They went in and made all 17-18 lay on the floor,” he said.
Rivera, who was working as a patrol officer at the time, was embarrassed that these robberies were taking place every night. He and some other officers approached the police chief with their concerns that the suspects couldn’t be caught using normal police methods and the “Shotgun Squad” was formed.
Plainclothes officers in unmarked cars are commonplace now, but according to Rivera the idea was controversial at the time.
“The whole community got up in arms saying, ‘Hey this is some kind of vigilante (thing),’” he said. “I remember them sending Western Union telegrams (to complain).”
Originally the squad was made up of four officers in one unmarked car. Rivera said, at the time, the department didn’t have any unmarked cars, so the officers used their personal cars.
According to Rivera, the members of the squad were working on a volunteer basis in their plainclothes work, but when the community took issue and said they were vigilantes, the chief at the time made the plainclothes operations their regular assignments.
The squad then split into two units and one of them caught the suspects behind the robberies.
Heroin shoe shuffle
Before taking the reins of the department, Rivera worked in nearly every division of the Lorain Police Department. It was in his time working as a narcotics detective that he was part of one of the biggest heroin busts in the country.
It was 1978, and things were different for Lorain officers fighting drugs, especially when it came to controlled buys.
“We didn’t have any money,” Rivera said with a laugh. “So, (the detectives would) put our own money together to buy drugs.”
Later, the chief gave the unit $300 for their controlled buys, but the unit didn’t know if they’d ever get more money, so they’d have to move quickly when making the buys so they could seize that cash to use for more controlled buys.
The unit had caught wind of a dealer on Gary Avenue on the south side of Lorain and set up a surveillance van Rivera and his partner James McBennett had purchased in a driveway across the street from the home and began collecting information.
“After about three months we had enough evidence to go get a search warrant,” Rivera said. “(The dealer) had taken out the heels of shoes and put heroin inside. He had all these shoes in a closet, tons of shoes, every single one you just had to play with the heel and open it up.”
Rivera said the bust netted $1.2 million worth of heroin. In today’s figures that is more than $4.6 million.
The not-so-golden years
As part of his exclusive interview with The Morning Journal, Rivera drove around the south side of the city pointing out locations where crimes were committed and giving various other anecdotes.
His near-constant refrain while guiding his official car through the streets was that whatever block or neighborhood he travels through, each is attached with a memory.
“Like, I drive past Lowell School and I remember at Lowell School we got a call while I was in special squad there was a silent alarm,” he said. “We were only two blocks away, so one car went one way and the other car took the other side and all of a sudden we hear gunshots (by the other officers.)”
Rivera said the suspect was a child that had broken into the school and attempted to run at the sight of the police.
At the time the department had what Rivera called a “fleeing felon rule,” which allowed officers to use deadly force to stop anyone attempting to escape justice after or during committing a felony.
“One of the officers shot the kid when he was running,” Rivera said. “I remember getting in the ambulance and (the officer who fired) telling me to take the evidence off him.
“It was all coloring pencils and things,” Rivera continued. “They almost killed a kid over (coloring pencils), but back then it was completely legal and there was not a single person who wrote or said anything that was critical.”
What he’s proud of
As the interview with Rivera wound down, he tried to pinpoint what he is most proud of in his time with the department.
He said it was moving away from such heavy handed tactics and attitudes towards the community.
“I think moving in a different direction; really moving towards community policing, away from the strong enforcement,” he said.