FBI Appoints New L.A. Chief

Richard T. Garcia, a 23-year FBI veteran who now runs its office in Houston, will return to head the bureau’s Los Angeles division next month, officials confirmed late Tuesday.

As head of the seven-county Los Angeles office, Garcia will oversee 1,100 employees, 670 of them agents, in a 40,000-square-mile region with 18 million people -- far larger than the FBI’s New York City office, the next largest in terms of population served.

Garcia, 50, also becomes the first Latino to run the FBI’s office in Los Angeles and one of only two to hold the title of assistant director within the FBI.

“I feel great,” Garcia said by phone from Houston. “It’s going to be good to come back to Los Angeles and work with old colleagues. And our mission will be to protect the people of Los Angeles in this time of great uncertainty over terrorism.”

“In my view, he is a most outstanding agent,” said retired FBI Agent Paul Magallanes. “He will make every agent in the nation proud.”

Magallanes, who is with the Century City-based security management firm of Mai Associates International, said Garcia was chosen based on his years as a field agent as well as his supervisory experience at FBI headquarters and in various cities.

Born in San Antonio, Garcia graduated with a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement from Southwest Texas University in San Marcos. In 1975, he joined the Dallas Police Department.

After five years, Garcia joined the FBI and was assigned to the Dallas division, where he remained until October 1982, when he was transferred to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Three years later, Garcia was transferred to the FBI’s Miami division and then later to FBI headquarters in Washington, where he was a supervisor in the Colombian/South American Drug Traffickers Unit.

In May 1993, he was appointed supervisor for a drug intelligence squad for the mid-Atlantic region.

A year later, he was appointed assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s El Paso office and, four years after that, was named chief of information technology operations at FBI headquarters.

In March 2001, former FBI Director Louis Freeh appointed Garcia head of the criminal division for the Los Angeles office, with responsibility for cases involving organized crime, drug trafficking and narcotics.

It was in that role that Garcia gained notoriety when the FBI worked with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to solve the kidnapping and murder of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion.

Garcia remained in Los Angeles until being appointed head of the FBI’s Houston field office in December 2002.

Garcia has extensive experience as an undercover agent and in undercover drug operations.

In 1990, he received the Distinguished Service Award at the 36th annual Attorney General awards for his role in a Colombian drug trafficking probe dubbed “Cat-Com.” Four years later, he received the Eagle Award from the National Hispanic Heritage Foundation for management in crime fighting.

And last December, he was honored by the White House for his work in Los Angeles, Houston and FBI headquarters.

Garcia succeeds Ronald L. Iden, who left the FBI earlier this month to become the state’s new Director of Homeland Security.

Times researcher Scott Wilson contributed to this report.