SAN BERNARDINO, California — San Bernardino Police Chief Darren Goodman was presented with a Freedom 250 Hometown Hero Award by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, according to the San Bernardino Sun.

The Sun reported that First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli presented the award at San Bernardino Police Department headquarters on May 19, praising Goodman as a direct, public-safety-focused leader for the city.

Recognition tied to service and civic responsibility

According to the report, each U.S. attorney’s office selected an honoree as part of a Freedom 250 recognition connected to the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. The awards recognize people who embody liberty, service and civic responsibility, the report said, citing the U.S. Department of Justice.

Essayli’s Central District of California covers San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, according to the Sun.

“He would come up, and he would advocate for the people of this community,” Essayli said of Goodman, according to the San Bernardino Sun. “He didn’t care what the party was. He didn’t care if the bill was from a Democrat or a Republican. He was just gonna call it like it is.”

Leading in a challenging city

Goodman was appointed San Bernardino’s 41st police chief in June 2022, the Sun reported. Before that, he served as Upland’s police chief from 2018 to 2022 and as a captain with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

Essayli told the Sun after the ceremony that Goodman has led in a city with a difficult political and public-safety environment. The report said Goodman has added to the police force and overseen more proactive policing and other initiatives after the city emerged from bankruptcy.

“It’s easy to be a police chief in Newport Beach,” Essayli said, according to the Sun. “It’s not easy to be a police chief in a city like San Bernardino that has historically had a lot of challenges.”

Goodman credited officers and community partners

Goodman used the recognition to point back to the people around him, according to the report, thanking the officers in his department and others in the community who support the work.

“What I’ll tell you is that the only reason I’m standing here is that all the men and women in this department, the people in this community, my peers, my partners, that support me,” Goodman said, according to the San Bernardino Sun.

He also emphasized the difficulty of the work in San Bernardino, the report said.

“You know, working in San Bernardino is hard, and it takes grit,” Goodman said, according to the Sun. “It takes tremendous dedication and commitment to do what you do every single day. And if anybody’s a hero, it’s all of you.”

For Support Law Enforcement readers, the recognition is a leadership story as much as an award story: a police chief publicly honored by federal prosecutors while using the moment to credit the officers, community members and partners who keep working in a city that faces real public-safety challenges.

Sources reviewed

Editorial note: ThinBlueNews used source-backed details from the San Bernardino Sun and a real source photo with attribution. No AI-generated police, rescue or incident imagery was used.