The new police chief of Hughson, Fidel Landeros, took to social media last week to introduce himself in the midst of COVID-19 social distancing regulations.

Landeros took over in mid-August from Chief Larry Seymour who retired Aug. 14 after serving in that role since April 2015.

“With this new COVID, it’s unfortunate that I have not been able to go out and go to public events where there are several community members present,” said the new chief on the Hughson Police Services Facebook page. “I’m hoping that once the restrictions are lifted that we can start having those events again.”

Since 2000, Landeros has been employed with the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department, for which the city of Hughson contracts for police services. Earlier in his career, Landeros served in patrol, and was a contract deputy for the city of Patterson and a community deputy in Empire, Grayson and Westley. For a time he also was assigned to the county’s Drug Enforcement Unit and spent 14 years with the Sheriff’s SWAT team. Landeros also worked in Court Services Division before he was promoted as the Internal Affairs Division sergeant, and a lieutenant for the department’s Administrative Services, which includes Internal Affairs and Safety divisions.

During his acclimation period, Chief Landeros said he learned that Hughson is heavily community involved.

He asks that anyone in Hughson who has experienced an incident involving crimes that don’t rise to the level of an emergency to call 552-2468. The Hughson Police lobby is closed due to coronavirus precautions but anyone may request a deputy to respond to a report of a crime by calling Hughson Police Records Division at 883-4052. He also said his department monitors the Nextdoor app which many Hughson residents use to communicate concerns with the rest of the community. But Chief Landeros said that while it’s common that folks will share about the theft of packages from front porches or suspicious persons lurking in neighborhoods, such posts get buried and the best thing is to call and report it directly in a timely manner.