The Texas Association of College and University Police Administrators (TACUPA) recently presented the prestigious Larry W. Fultz Memorial Award for Excellence to Tarrant County College District (TCCD) Assistant Chief Leigh Dietrich at its recent 50th Annual Conference in Corpus Christi.
During her tenure with TCCD, Dietrich has received numerous departmental awards including recognition as “2004 Officer of the Year,” “2008 Supervisor of the Year” and as the recipient of a life-saving award in 2011.
Dietrich has demonstrated critical thinking, strong leadership and management skills along with exceptional team-building skills. She maintains direct lines of effective communication internally and externally. Her areas of responsibility include the development of department policies such as crisis management and critical incident responses and the establishment of liaisons and cooperation with other agencies when emergency or disaster response coordination is required.
Prior to joining TCCD, Dietrich began her law enforcement career with the Dallas Police Department where she was president of her academy class. She started as a police officer on the Northwest Campus in 2001 where she worked for almost five years. She later worked at Northeast Campus where she was promoted to corporal in 2008. In April 2010, Dietrich was promoted to sergeant at Northwest Campus. She was promoted the next year to lieutenant at Southeast Campus.
Dietrich comes from a family of law enforcement officers. Her grandfather was a Department of Public Safety officer for 30 years before his retirement. Her brother is City Marshal in South Texas. Additionally, her sister is an attorney.
She earned a master’s degree from the University of Cincinnati and a bachelor’s degree from The University of Texas at Arlington, both in criminal justice. On June 2, 2012, she became the second person to become assistant chief of police at TCC.
Recognizing an outstanding campus police officer in the state of Texas, TACUPA named its award after Larry W. Fultz, who had a multi-faceted life dedicated to law enforcement. He was a retired inspector for the city of Houston Police Department, an attorney, head of Juvenile Probation Department for Harris County and principal author of the current juvenile and family code of the state of Texas. He served as director of security at the University of Houston and became active in the promotion and development of campus policing.
Each member institution may nominate officers. The recipient for this recognition must be a full-commissioned peace officer who promotes professional ideals and standards in law enforcement in order to serve the educational objectives of institutions of higher education.
