EPPD Participation Awards? Some, Not All.

17 April 2024, El Paso, Texas, Steven Zimmerman—We’ve all heard of participation trophies. What we’ve never heard of is participation trophies being given to Police Officers who have robbed fellow Officers. Nor have we heard of participation trophies going to Police units that don’t like to do their jobs. But that happened, according to Sergeant Miguel A. Acuna, badge number 2396, to Ron Martin and the Crisis Intervention Team.

Below you will find the recipients for the 2024 Annual Awards. The Awards Committee had the difficult task of going through and reading many wonderful letters of all those nominated for these prestigious awards. All nominees were very deserving because they all demonstrated their hard work and dedication to their job and the community. It was not easy to narrow it down and ultimately only select one but the committee ultimately voted on the below results. Thank you all who submitted nominees, to all the nominees for all their continuous dedication to their job, and to the awards committee for dedicating their time and helping keep this tradition going.

“Anybody can get an award,” says an Officer with the El Paso Police Department. “You have a criminal and a negligent unit getting a useless award.”

Sergeant Ron Martin, who embezzled funds from the El Paso Municipal Police Officers’ Association and agreed to pay the money he took back after being arrested, was nominated by Sergeant Dwain L. Johnson for the lifesaving award.

The Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), in the ultimate pat on the back, nominated themselves for the Meritorious Service Award. Lieutenant Robert Pisarcik, the Lieutenant for CIT, nominated his unit.

“Can you be more narcissistic than that?” asks another Lieutenant with the El Paso Police Department. “Nominating your unit, the unit you are the Lt for, doesn’t add value to the award.”

We congratulate the other officers on the list who deserve recognition and applaud them.

“The sad thing is,” says another Officer, “it puts real officers and the award into dispute. It’s not worth anything anymore.”

We spoke with Aysha Jusino-Camp, another writer for Southwest News Today and the wife of an El Paso Police Sergeant, who was more than put off by Martin’s inclusion on the list for a lifesaving award.

“Let me get this straight: a criminal receives a lifesaving award, but my husband, who saved a life, gets treated as a criminal,” says Jusino-Camp. “Please help me make sense of that.”

“I take it there is very little merit to these awards,” says Roberto Escalante, an El Paso resident to whom I showed the list. “What’s the point of this award, then?”

Again, we congratulate the ones who deserve the award they have received.