Relatively Speaking

It’s common for police officers to think of themselves as belonging to one big family.

But for Chris and Eric Nunez, this bond comes even more easily. The two are first cousins and hold the same job for two neighboring Orange County cities.

Both are press information officers. Chris, 43, has been the PIO with the Buena Park Police Department for 19 years. Eric, 38, has been in that position with the La Palma Police Department for nine years.

Both said they are more like brothers than cousins. Their parents are siblings; their fathers are brothers, their mothers are sisters, and they spent most of their childhood together, each living at one time or another with the other in South Los Angeles and Fullerton.

The two hope to team up with PIOs from other police departments in Orange County to form a Press Information Organization that will be a place where police can learn to better understand press relations.

“I’ve always felt that the most important aspect of our job should be to enhance the relationship between the department and the media,” Chris Nunez said. “Too many times you’ll hear about tensions between these two groups who really have the best interest of the community in mind. As long as we as police understand that the media have a job to do, and they understand we have a job to do, there’s really no reason we can’t work together.”

Added Eric: “I think it would help if we educated one another about things, like what deadlines mean to reporters and just learning how to be more receptive to the needs of the press in general. Inevitably it will only help us build better relationships with news organizations and get the information we think is necessary out to the public easier.”

The Nunezes also coordinate their departments’ community crime-prevention and education programs.

Both work with their cities’ volunteer policing and Neighborhood Watch programs. They work closely with the Explorers, a youth volunteer program that gives 14- to 21-year-olds experience working in a police department and exposes them to career opportunities in law enforcement.

Later this year, the two hope to collaborate on producing general public-safety announcements that will air in Buena Park and La Palma. The videos will focus on crime prevention and current crime trends, they said.

And for Eric, the videos will let “me work professionally with someone who has been like a big brother to me.”

Andre Briscoe can be reached at (714) 966-5848.