Behind the Badge
One round.
The moment Frani Echavarria realized her final shot of the low light firearms qualifier missed its mark, she dropped to her knees and cried.
“I knew I failed,” the 26-year-old said. “And I was terrified of what would happen next.”
Would her academy run come to an end? Would she lose her job with Montebello PD? What would her father say?
In week 17, more than four months into the six-month Golden West Criminal Justice Training Center police academy, Echavarria was dismissed from Class No. 151.
She went home and had a heart-to-heart with her father, Garden Grove Sgt. Ronnie Echavarria Sr.
“She was so broken. I have never seen my daughter like that,” Echavarria Sr. said. “But by the next morning, she woke up and said, ‘I’m not going to quit. Dad, this is what I feel I am destined to do.’”
After being dismissed in February and let go from her job with Montebello PD, Echavarria was back in the pre-academy in March. This time, her family sponsored her.
“I wouldn’t allow myself a break,” she said. “I knew I wanted it. I always told myself: Any dream worth having is worth fighting for. I’ve been a fighter my whole life.”
Echavarria could learn to shoot, but the kind of determination that inspires someone to take on back-to-back academies is something that can’t be taught.
“This is something I feel I’m drawn to, and I can’t see myself doing anything else,” she said.
Members of the Westminster PD, Cmdr. Cameron Knauerhaze, left, Sgt. Mark Lauderback, Chief Roy Campos, Officer Frani Echavarria and Sgt. Darrick Vincent at Echavarria’s GWC Criminal Justice Training Center Basic Police Academy graduation ceremony.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
A life in law enforcement
Echavarria only ever remembers wanting to be a law enforcement officer.
From a very young age, she remembers seeing her father in his Class A uniform and feeling proud.
She remembers visiting the Garden Grove PD and seeing mug shots of suspects taped up next to photos of her family at her father’s desk. The sullen faces of criminals hanging next to her family’s smiling ones was exciting, not strange.
Echavarria remembers she had a lot of uncles — not the biological kind — but those who also wore a badge like her dad. She learned she and her three brothers already had a place in the law enforcement family.
With her waist-length braid pulled through the back of a Garden Grove PD baseball cap, she remembers climbing through patrol vehicles with her older brother, Ronnie Jr., and listening intently to her dad’s stories told around the dinner table.
Law enforcement seemed the perfect career for the little girl her parents described as headstrong and unwavering.
“I think it’s important that women don’t fall victim to any kind of stereotype or put themselves in any type of category,” Echavarria said. “There is no glass ceiling any more for women. You can do whatever you want, if you’re willing to believe you can.”
Academy round two
Although Echavarria knew what to expect the second time around in the academy, it didn’t make it easier.
On Black Monday — the first day — the recruit training officers were again in her face.
“I’m proud of you for coming back,” they told her.
“You better get it done this time,” they said.
“They were all so motivating and so supportive of me,” she said. “They were happy I returned, but then they began to yell at me again.”
Echavarria said she could handle the yelling. The recruit training officers ran a distant second to the tough love of her mother, Loretta.
“She was definitely the toughest coach I have ever had,” she said. “I get my inner strength from my mom.”
And having to redo the most physically demanding weeks of the academy didn’t phase Echavarria either, being an avid Crossfit athlete and former collegiate softball player (she received a full-ride scholarship to UC Berkley and graduated with a degree in sociology in 2012.)
“The physical part I could handle,” she said. “But the mental challenge of staying focused and staying the course was the hardest part.”
This time around, there also was a new dynamic facing her: working alongside her older brother, Ronnie Echavarria, Jr.
“It was hard at times because we’re very competitive and there were a lot of rifts between us,” she said. “But, at the end of the day, I love my brother and he loves me and whenever one of us fell short, we were there for each other.”
Echavarria — voted vice president of her academy class — caught the attention of the Westminster PD and was hired part-way through the program. The department recently has put an emphasis on hiring recruits from local police academies.
She was the only recruit hired by Westminster PD from her class.
Echavarria Sr. said he is happy his daughter found a place in the neighboring city to where he has worked for 28 years.
“For her to go to a department that I have the utmost respect for and love, just makes the whole passing of the torch experience from father to daughter that much better. I know that Westminster PD is very close and they’ll take good care of her.”
But there is still some apprehension as his two eldest children prepare to hit the streets. (Echavarria Jr. currently is in backgrounds with several law enforcement agencies.)
“What I fear most for them is the perception of the public,” Echavarria Sr. said. “I’ve never seen it so bad. More people are confrontational and less respectful of the profession. It’s very dangerous for a young officer to be out there with those challenges. As a father, I have lost some sleep over that.”
But as a fellow law enforcement officer, Echavarria Sr. said he knows his daughter is up for the challenge.
“She has the heart of a lion, that girl,” he said. “This is truly her calling. I think she’s going to make a wonderful officer.”
Westminster PD recruit Frani Echavarria talks with her classmates before the start of Golden West College Criminal Justice Training Center’s graduation ceremony at Orange Coast College.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
Echavarria said she is ready and hopes to work hard to build positive relationships in the community.
“Being a young, female, Hispanic recruit I’m hoping I can inspire people to change their perception,” she said. “It’s going to be an added challenge in an already challenging profession. But there are plenty of people out there who are supportive of our profession. We wouldn’t be the officers we are without our community and our supporters.”
Echavarria said her goals with Westminster PD are first to make her training officer feel confident that she can effectively patrol the city (she currently is in a 17-week training program).
She one day also wants to return to Golden West as a recruit training officer and eventually wants to make detective, like her dad.
“My drive comes from my father,” she said. “He has taught me to be a confident, independent woman. He taught me that any goal I set, I can push myself to get it done. If you fall short and a door closes, find another door and keep going.”
That kind of drive cannot be taught, but, as Echavarria proved, shooting can be.
In the low light firearms qualifier her second time around, she finished with the third highest score in her class.
Westminster PD Recruit Frani Echavarria helps present the Six Pillars of Character during Golden West College Criminal Justice Training Center’s Basic Police Academy graduation ceremony.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
Westminster PD Interim Police Chief Roy Campos, right, presents recruit Frani Echavarria with her basic police academy diploma during Golden West College Criminal Justice Training Center’s graduation ceremony.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
Westminster PD Recruit Frani Echavarria stands with her classmates for inspection before Golden West College Criminal Justice graduation ceremonies at Orange Coast College.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
On his last day before retiring, Westminster PD Sgt. Darrick Vincent, left, congratulates Frani Echavarria after graduation from the Golden West College Criminal Justice Training Center Basic Police Academy, Class of 152.
Photo by Steven Georges/Behind the Badge OC
