‘A great time’: Retiring Harlingen police chief reflects on 35-year career

HARLINGEN — Since he took his first job as a patrolman, Police Chief Michael Kester has helped transform the police department to fight crime across the city’s changing landscape.

After 35 years, he’s retiring from the department where he’s worked in every division.

In a meeting, city commissioners presented Kester with a proclamation honoring his career, with Mayor Norma Sepulveda describing him as an “incredible leader” throughout an “exceptional career.”

“You lead with integrity,” she told him during Wednesday’s city commission meeting. “The entire department supports you. It says a lot about your character. You have a big heart. The citizens of Harlingen are better off because you’re at the helm of the organization.”

Since taking the job in 1990, Kester’s worked to bring stability to the police department while leading his officers into the 21st Century’s constantly changing world.

“It’s a whole different ball game since I started as a patrolman,” Kester said in an interview.

“We didn’t even issue guns back then,” he said. “We had to bring our own.”

In the department’s patrol cars, officers relied on built-in console radios.

But they couldn’t count on working with the department’s limited number of hand-held radios.

“You didn’t have direct contact with a radio on your belt,” Kester said. “We shared radios — if you were lucky.”

Harlingen Police Department Police Chief Michael E. Kester sits in his office Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. He will retire after 35 years of service. (Miguel Roberts | The Brownsville Herald)

“If there were a lot of people working,” officers were out of luck when it came to hand-held radios, he said.

When he took his first job here, Harlingen’s population was climbing just over 50,000, with about 100 officers on the force, Kester said.

“The department grew along with it,” he said.

By December 2015, then-Police Chief Jeffry Adickes was appointing Kester to the dual role of assistant chief and chief of staff.

Then in May 2019, commissioners named him police chief.

“Being hired from the inside, I knew the people,” Kester said. “It was easy to change from assistant chief to taking over the department.”

Now, with a population of more than 72,000, the department’s staffing 144 officers.

Through the years, Harlingen’s slower growth’s helped the police department keep up with crime, Kester said.

“We have more people but less crime,” he said.

Still, burglaries and thefts are on the top of the city’s statistics, Kester said.

Harlingen Police Department Police Chief Michael E. Kester stands along a wall showing photos of the department’s chiefs Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. He will retire after 35 years of law enforcement service. (Miguel Roberts | The Brownsville Herald)

Since he began patrolling the streets, the department’s fought drugs along one of the world’s biggest corridors.

“There was a problem when I started and there’s a problem today,” Kester said. “It’s supply and demand. It’s never going away.”

Now, he said, methamphetamine is hitting the streets.

“We’re starting to see more methamphetamine,” Kester said. “The cost is cheap so a lot of people who use drugs are switching to that.”

Like in cities across the country, school security’s become part of the job.

“We have to have armed people at school,” Kester said. “That’s a culture change.”

Meanwhile, technology’s changing the face of crime, he said.

“There’s online crime,” Kester said. “Cyber crime’s difficult to follow.”

For years, Kester’s pushed for funding to keep up with technological change.

“Technology alone is incredible,” he said. “We’re getting new body cams in, the tasers are coming in. The SWAT team’s getting a new armored vehicle.”

Meanwhile, policing continues to evolve.

In the 1990s, police officers began entering classrooms, bringing DARE, law enforcement’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, into schools, Kester recalled.

Under his watch, the department’s been focusing on community policing.

“You can’t do your job effectively without a good relationship with the community,” he said.

So for years now, he said, the police department’s been drawing residents to community events like its Heroes 5K Run and its annual BBQ Cook Off.

For Kester, after 35 years the department’s grown into a family.

When he retires on Feb. 4, he’s going to leave behind his close friends.

“It’s going to be the people — great friends,” he said. “The relationships here are special when you work here this long.”

During his 35 years with the department, Kester’s worked closely with the community.

“It’s been a great time,” he said. “I did my best to make it a better community.”

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