Long Beach Police Deputy Chief Richard Rocchi to retire after 30 years with the department

In the 30 years he’s policed Long Beach, Deputy Chief Richard Rocchi has seen a lot on the streets. Nearing retirement after 30 years, what he remembers isn’t the drama; it’s the simple interactions with people.

On one such occasion, he and his partner were sent to the Hellman neighborhood on a call of a distraught man trying to injure himself. Rocchi found the man lying in a bed, bleeding from a cut across his neck and continuing to cut himself with an 8-inch knife.

“I was able to get him, just for a brief moment with our conversation, to put the knife down,” he said. “And that’s all it took. It took that one second for me to get into that room and grab the knife before he could get it, and either injure me or injure himself. We were able to get the paramedics in there and get him to the hospital and saved his life.”

At its core, police work means doing all that’s possible to help people, he said.

In three decades, the 50-year-old deputy chief has served numerous roles, including patrol, field training officer, special enforcement section, SWAT, gang enforcement, community policing and inteal affairs, among others. He will end his career on June 10 as one of three deputy chiefs who are second in command of a department that employs roughly 800 officers. His bureau, patrol, is the department’s largest and will now fall under the command of Deputy Chief David Hendricks.

Begiings

Rocchi’s interest in law enforcement began during his childhood in Bixby Knolls, but didn’t truly solidify until he went on a ride-along in high school — an experience he said left him itching to enter the police academy.

After graduating from Poly High School, where he played water polo and swam, Rocchi attended Long Beach City College and entered the Long Beach Police Reserve Academy, becoming a reserve officer in May 1986.

He received his bachelor’s degree in vocational education from Cal State Long Beach, and later retued to get a master’s degree in public administration.

Rocchi became a swo Long Beach Police Officer in October 1987. Challenging times, however, were to follow.

He was working the day in 1997 when Officer Brian Watt was shot, and on the night of April 29, 2000, the night Officer Daryle Black was ambushed and gued down by a Compton gang member, a killing the rattled the city and department for years to come.

He has also seen the department weather staffing shortages. Around 1990, the Long Beach Police Department was losing veteran officers and was having trouble hiring more, he recalls. In 1990, staffing got so low that the City Council approved a plan to hire 43 Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputies to patrol about one-fifth of the city as a stopgap measure while the department worked to hire more officer.

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“Before that, we didn’t have enough police officers to cover the city,” Rocchi said. “I would work downtown and get dispatched to the north end of our city because no one was there to do it [...] We’ve come a long way from that.”

The changing nature of police work also continues as officers and department leadership work to improve relationships with the community, he said.

“We’re husbands, we’re wives, we’re brothers, we’re sisters, we’re daughters, we’re sons; we’re like anybody else,” Rocchi said. “This is just the profession we chose to do and the people that choose this profession choose it because they have a sincere service-oriented personality where they want to make a difference.”

Despite the challenges, Rocchi says his faith in Jesus, his family and a support system at the department have helped him pull through.

Retirement

Rocchi said he’s looking forward to spending time with his wife and three children. Camping trips, one of their favorite pastimes, are in order, as are his children’s activities — baseball, karate and dance.

Rocchi began working with the Special Olympics of Southe Califoia through the police department in 2007. He discovered a short time later that his son, now 13, had Asperger’s Syndrome, which is on the autism spectrum, and dyslexia.

“He’s a great kid,” Rocchi said. “He loves karate, and he’s working toward his black belt.”

His youngest daughter, 11, has taken up dance and gymnastics. His oldest daughter, 15, wants to be a professional baseball aouncer for the Angels.

Chief Robert Luna, who joined the department shortly before Rocchi, called him an exceptional and inspirational leader. Over the years, the two worked SWAT and Special Enforcement Team details together and were part of the same SWAT platoon during the 1992 riots.

“I have nothing but good memories,” Luna said in a phone interview. “He’s always been known as a very honest, hardworking [officer]. He gave it his all. [He’s leaving] with a reputation that he was a man of integrity. He never wavered.”

Rocchi said he will cherish the memories, but it’s time to move on.

“I love this police department but everything comes to an end at some point,” he said. “This is the end of my era. It’s time for somebody else to step in and carry it forward.”