Joe Garza, Sergeant
Dallas Police Department (Retired)
Career Highlights
- Marksmanship Award
- Certificate of Merit Unit Award
- Certificate of Merit
- Police Commendation Award
- Perfect Attendance 20 Years
- Safe Driving 25 Years
Joe Garza began his 29-year law enforcement career with the Dallas Police Department in January 1989 in the Southwest Patrol Division. In January of 1992, he was selected to join the Narcotics “Street Squad” Unit. This unit tasked with making cases on street-level drug dealers. While assigned to the Narcotics Street Squad, Joe worked undercover and executed hundreds of dynamic entry search warrants as the point entry member of the warrant team.
In April 2001, he was selected to join the Robbery and Assault Units of the Crimes Against Persons Division as a detective. During his time as a detective in the Crimes Against Persons Division, Joe investigated hundreds of individual and business robbery cases and Assault and Aggravated Assault cases, using criminal investigative techniques and relying on interview and interrogation skills to obtain confessions from suspects and solving cases.
In June 2005, Joe was promoted to Sergeant. In June of 2006, he was selected to join the Public Integrity Unit. This unit criminally investigated city employees, public officials, and police officers. Joe led those investigations under differing circumstances, from undercover operations and covert surveillance to obtain evidence and presenting Executive Summaries to the Chief of Police. In 2010, Joe was selected to join the Homicide Unit as a supervisor. Joe has led hundreds of murder investigations along with suicides and unexplained deaths and officer-involved shootings. Supervising the investigative process and ensuring that he and his detectives were proficient in their investigative skills, including formal investigative techniques, including crime scene interpretation, cell phone investigation, detecting deception, and interview and interrogation. During all these investigations, Joe maintained the integrity of these cases by always adhering to the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and implementing any new case law for each amendment.
On July 7, 2016, Joe supervised the investigation on the worst day in Dallas Police history when four Dallas officers and one DART officer were guns downed in downtown Dallas. Joe led all police and civilian interviews, over 250 interviews through the first 36 hours of the tragedy. Joe’s career has been very diverse and he has gained the knowledge and experience and expertise to lead many different investigations with the Dallas Police Department.
Joe retired in April 2018 with the Dallas Police Department.
Joe holds a Master Police Officer Certification and is certified by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) as an instructor. He also is a guest instructor with the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC).