Every business in Tucson contributes to the growth of Tucson. But there's one organization that contributes to the growth of every business: the Tucson Police Department.
I sat down with Chief of Police Monica Prieto, Chief of Staff Dominic Flores, and Officer James Horton to understand a relationship that touches every company in this city, whether they think about it or not.
Prieto has spent 27 years with the department, working her way up through nearly every role it offers. That path shows. Even now, as chief, she describes herself less as the person with the answers and more as someone still gathering them — pulling insight from every group that has a stake in the department's success.
Tucson Police Chief Monica Prieto, seen here taking questions during a meeting in April of Our America Foundation, leads an organization with an often overlooked role in the city's business growth.
That mindset shapes how she leads. TPD's mission is public safety, full stop, and Prieto's job is to put all 1,200 employees — approximately 800 officers and 400 professional staff — in a position to deliver on it. That means building a culture where every voice gets heard, and deploying resources with discipline and strategy behind every decision.
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Strategy isn't optional. It's survival. In 2008, TPD fielded more than 1,100 officers for a city of just under 524,000. Today, that number has dropped by 300 officers, even as the population has climbed past 550,000. That means fewer people have more ground to cover.
Recognizing this reality, Prieto has three pillars that guide the strategy and direction of the department.
Pillar One: Workforce Development
Everything starts with the team. TPD trains for the obvious skills — the tactical, procedural baseline every officer needs — but it goes further, treating communication as a discipline in its own right.
Officers are trained in active listening, in peer-to-peer listening, and in a style of questioning built on humility: we don't have all the answers — tell me more. Those habits aren't theoretical. Officers use them every day, on every call.
That philosophy comes to life most visibly in CORE — Community Outreach, Resource, and Education — a program that puts TPD personnel in direct, ongoing contact with a wide range of groups across Tucson.
It's Prieto's "every voice is heard" principle in action. And it's working well enough that other departments have taken notice: Mesa Police Department has visited Tucson specifically to study how CORE runs.
Pillar Two: Safe and Strategic Policing
This is where research and technology meet the street. Prieto's team has built a toolkit that would be at home in any well-funded metro department.
TPD runs its own crime lab — forensic analysts, firearms examiners, digital crime specialists, the works. License plate reader and camera technology, often thought of as a traffic tool, has done far more: it helped make an arrest after a 3-year-old was struck by a car during an illegal drag race, and it helped locate a missing 13-year-old with autism.
Drone technology continues to enhance police capabilities, feeding officers real-time information to improve community and officer safety — in one case, tracking a suspect in a killing who was on the run and pinpointing exactly where investigators say he ditched his gun.
None of it replaces officers. It multiplies them — helping a smaller force stay safer, move faster, and make better decisions about where to send limited people and time.
Pillar Three: Trust and Connection
The last pillar is the one that holds the other two together. Prieto is clear that TPD's success rests on trust — not just with the community it serves, but within its own ranks. It is the cornerstone of the culture within TPD.
I heard the same themes from all three people I spoke with, offered independently and in their own words:
• We listen to everyone.
• We build trust by showing people we have their best interests at heart.
• We're one team.
• We're problem solvers.
• We put everyone's experience to work.
Three different roles, one shared language — which says something about how deeply that culture has taken hold.
Public safety is one of the most important jobs any city government carries, and it's a big job to lead. Chief Prieto brings to it the kind of vision, skill, and empathy that would make any Fortune 500 company want her in the corner office.
Tucson's businesses have a lot of partners in their growth.
Few are as essential — or as easy to overlook — as the Tucson Police Department.
