This is the first of three profiles of local residents who share their stories and perspectives for Hispanic Heritage Month.
Correction appended
Detective Byron Perez is as local as local gets.
“I always joke: I never went to school, worked or lived outside of Riverhead,” he said. He was happy that was the case, and called his experiences in Riverhead “very, very positive.”
His life story is not an uncommon one for Riverhead residents. Perez graduated from Riverhead High School, and worked a gig at Splish Splash while looking for something in higher education that inspired him. He tried taking classes in education, business, landscaping and architecture, but it just wasn’t for him.
His life changed, though, when he took a criminal justice class at Suffolk County Community College. He was intrigued by the material, and found a whole new appetite for education. “I didn’t have that focus in school,” he said with a laugh. He was interested in the experiences of his teachers, many of whom were ex-law enforcement who shared their stories.
Eventually, one of these teachers directed him to the police exam. He took it and, evidently, did well. “The rest is history,” Perez said.
Perez also reflects the face of the average Riverhead resident in another way: He is Hispanic. As of the 2020 Census, almost one in three Riverhead residents are Hispanic. Fifty-three percent of Riverhead residents are of a race other than or in addition to white, according to the same census.
When Perez, now 39, joined the Riverhead Police Department in 2014, he was the the second Hispanic police officer ever to serve on the force. Now, he is one of only three.
Perez said that he had a positive experience while in training. “I was field-trained by three different officers,” he said. “The patience and the respect that they gave me was awesome.”
That said, he acknowledged that his first few years as a police officer were “a little busy.” He said that speaking to someone directly is “personable,” and that investigations are “a lot shorter” than when using a translation service. In addition, he was asked to participate in interviews, he was teaching drug awareness to Pulaski students and was also frequently asked to be a guest speaker at community events. “It was a lot, but it was great,” Perez said.
As a police officer, his heritage positively affects how he approaches his work, Perez said.
“I can understand where people are coming from,” he said. As a child of “an immigrant family, growing up on a farm,” he has an easier time communicating with other children of immigrant families. Perez tries to teach these kids that they can be their family’s “golden ticket,” and they can support their family in the ways their family supported them.
He has learned the value of these lessons by living them. Perez said that he supported both of his parents until they passed away, and continues to support his sister, who has cerebral palsy.
To the Hispanic community, he said directly:
“A la comunidad: necesitamos que nos ayudemos para las cosas buenas que este pueblo nos puede dar, y pienso que con eso vamos ser una comunidad bien bonita.”
[“To the community: we need to help ourselves for the good things that this town can give us, and I think that with that, we will be a very nice community.”]
Perez said he wishes more positive Hispanic figures were visible to the Riverhead community.
“There’s a lot of positives in this town,” he said, but he feared what Riverhead has to offer could get “misconstrued.” He said that the positive figures in the Latino community could make things better for everybody, and inspire more people to be like them.
“Maybe that’ll make it more positive when they see a Hispanic person,” Perez said.
His experiences are colored by years of interacting with Riverhead’s young people. In addition to teaching drug awareness, he ran a bilingual soccer league for a few years, and was Riverhead’s School Resource Officer from 2018 to 2020. He also served on the Riverhead Board of Education.
But Perez’s professional bona fides don’t alienate him from a life that is, otherwise, very relatable. He talked about working on his golf swing before work, and lamented the Jets’ defense this season.
Like all of us, all he is doing is his best.
More in this series:
Young Riverhead entrepreneur credits his parents, Hispanic heritage for motivation and work ethic
Correction: This story originally referred to Det. Byron Perez as Riverhead’s first Hispanic police officer. That characterization relied on statements made by Police Chief David Hegermiller on Dec. 16, 2014, after the chief administered the oath to Perez and five other officers. Perez was, in fact, the second Riverhead police officer of Latino heritage. The first was Det. Frank Hernandez, who joined the town police department in January 1988 and retired in February 2019. A family member of the retired detective contacted RiverheadLOCAL on Oct. 13 and Hegermiller, at the request of this publication, contacted Hernandez today to confirm he is of Hispanic heritage.
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