Officer honored by city

Diplomas, awards and pictures from teenagers Tony Urrutia was told were hopeless hang on his office wall.

The Carson City juvenile probation officer and city Latino Employee of the Year said he disagreed because he knew it was never that simple.

"We don't just have numbers," said Urrutia, 45, who was given the employee award as part of the Salsa y Salsa Celebration this weekend. "We have individual people, and we see what's going on in their lives."

Urrutia used to work as a sheriff's deputy, but his job now is much different than that, he said. He talks with families, refers people to treatment and teaches them about gangs, drugs and social skills.

"My job is 50 percent law and 50 percent social work," he said.

Urrutia works with about 35 people at any given time who are mostly teens, though they range from between 8 and 21 years old. They are arrested for anything from underage drinking to fighting.

Most of those he's worked with in his five years at the department have been Hispanic because he was for years the only officer who could speak Spanish.

A job in anything close to law enforcement, however, was not what he was planning when he came to the United States in 1980.

When he moved to Los Angeles because of a civil war in his home country of El Salvador, he studied to be a minister. He did work as a gang mediator while he was there and as a drug and alcohol counselor when he moved to Carson City. Criminal justice classes got him interested in work as a deputy, but he said that wasn't right for him.

He is an assistant minister at a church in Reno, however, and has used his background in this job.

John Simms, chief probation officer, said Urrutia's decisions to start education classes and build a relationships between the juvenile probation department and Hispanics in the city have made him a great employee.

"It's what he does that we don't ask him to," Simms said.

The department is about more than "hooking and booking" teens who get in trouble and Urrutia knows it, he said.

Javier Ramirez, who has worked with Urrutia on teaching students and Hispanic families about gangs through school presentations and the Carson City Community Coalition, said Urrutia works anywhere from homes to churches.

"He helps out the community whenever he can," said Ramirez, who leads the coalition. "His talent and qualities are invaluable."

- Contact reporter Dave Frank at dfrank@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.