Lillian Garrido grew up among cars and mechanical work, and her experience helped her get a job as an auto theft detective.
By Jennifer Mooney Piedra, The Miami Herald
Looks can be deceiving.
Lillian Garrido, the only female auto theft detective in the Doral, Fla. police department, is living proof.
She is five feet tall, weighs 105 pounds, sports regularly manicured fingernails and is a stylish dresser.
But Garrido can change a flat tire faster than most men and can hold her own in a conversation on different types of cars, their parts and how to fix them.
Garrido, 28, learned the skills as a teenager working in her father’s Hialeah auto body shop, MG Motors.
Her experience in the car business, combined with a love of police work, landed Garrido her dream job: combating auto theft crimes for the new city’s first police force.
''My knowledge of cars really helped me,’' Garrido said. ``Most females don’t like to touch dirty car parts but, because I was raised around it, it doesn’t bother me.’'
Garrido began her career as a police officer with Miami-Dade about three years ago in the Intracoastal station, which covers the unincorporated areas near North Miami and Aventura.
She then moved to the Northside station, patroling the unincorporated areas near Liberty City.
But when the nearly year-old city of Doral was looking for officers to join its new police department -- which is a branch of the county’s force -- Garrido jumped at the chance.
''It’s completely different in Doral,’' Garrido said. ``People here actually like the police.’'
Garrido was chosen to be the department’s only auto theft detective and she started in April at the same time the force made its debut.
Because Doral is a wealthy community, Garrido said, the residents are likely targets for auto thefts and related crimes.
Women who drive expensive cars, she said, are especially vulnerable.
One of the most active spots for car break-ins is LA Fitness, 10055 NW 41st St., where members often leave their purses and wallets in the trunks of their cars while they work out. What they don’t realize, Garrido said, is that someone may be watching them.
Another problem area is International Mall, where cars are broken into daily. The thieves, she said, are usually teenagers who take cellphones, CDs and radios.
In the first month on the job, Garrido pulled the plug on a string of ''distraction thefts’’ aimed at bank customers.
Doral police give this account of the incidents:
On three occasions, customers went into Wachovia Bank, 10601 NW 41st St., and withdrew large amounts of money, ranging from $1,500 to $7,000.
While in the bank, their car tires were punctured. They were then followed as they left the bank’s parking lot.
Minutes later, the bank customer realized he had a flat tire, pulled over and was approached by a man offering to help.
Rather than helping, though, the man asked for directions, usually pulling out a large map and placing it over the car window. Meanwhile, an accomplice went to the other side of the car, opened the door and grabbed the money.
Realizing this was becoming a trend, Garrido began studying bank surveillance cameras to see if she could spot someone suspicious.
Interviews with witnesses revealed the man who confronted stranded drivers drove a green Ford Taurus with dark tinted windows and a temporary license plate. Garrido put out a countywide alert for the car.
Garrido solved the mystery by pure coincidence.
On May 7, while sitting in a hotel parking lot doing paperwork for an interview she had just completed in another case, Garrido spotted the wanted car and the driver.
''By coincidence we were in the same parking lot,’' Garrido said. ``I couldn’t believe it.’'
Garrido tried to make herself unobtrusive as she sat in her unmarked gold Ford Taurus watching the suspect peeking into car windows.
Garrido pulled out of the parking lot and called for backup.
The suspect drove off and entered the parking lot of a nearby hotel, where he again looked into the car windows.
Garrido kept her distance until he pulled into a strip mall on Northwest 87th Avenue and 33rd Street.
She drove up and arrested John Hernando Garcia, 36, a resident of the Hammocks area in Kendall.
When police searched Garcia’s car, Garrido said, officers found burglary tools, maps and a change of clothes. Hidden behind the car’s glove box was a T-shaped tool used to flatten tires, she said.
Garcia was charged with altering a tag, altering an insurance card, using a fraudulent insurance card, five counts of altering the vehicle identification numbers on cars, possession of burglary tools and loitering and prowling.
A court date is pending.
Garrido’s work drew high praise from her boss.
''To me, she epitomizes what the future of law enforcement is: people who are energetic, who want to do a good job,’' Doral police Cmdr. Ricardo Gomez said.
Since Garcia’s arrest, similar distraction thefts have stopped in the Doral area, Garrido said.
''Everybody was really happy with me,’' she said. ``It was the best feeling.’'