Imperial’s newest police officer brings 18 years experience to job

    Jose Ruiz is getting familiar with the city of Imperial as the community’s newest police officer.
    Ruiz, 39, came on the job Monday bringing with him 18 years of law enforcement experience.
    He and his family moved to Imperial from Kimball, where he spent the past two years as a corporal with the Kimball Police Department.
    From 2006-2020, he worked for the Cheyenne, Wyoming Police Department, where in addition to his officer patrol duties, was also a Field Training Officer for the department.
    From 2004-06, he was on security detail at the Sterling, Colorado Correctional Facility. While there, he earned his EMT certification.
    After high school in Denver, he received an athletic scholarship for football and baseball to Briar Cliff College in Sioux City, Iowa, where he studied criminal forensics.
    After a year there, he transferred to Colorado State in Pueblo, where his sister was also attending school after her high school graduation.
    For Ruiz, working in law enforcement had always been an ultimate goal.
    He said his early years growing up in south Denver, where drugs and gangs were present, gave him a look at the other side of the law. He gained a lot of “life experiences” there, he said.
    That background was a big reason for seeking out a life in law enforcement, he said. His dad was arrested on drug charges and his brothers have been involved with gangs.
    “I didn’t want that to be my life. College got me out of Denver,” he said.
    Life is all about choices, he said.
    He was the first in his family of six siblings to graduate from high school and attend college.
    After college, he took the job at the Sterling Correctional Facility.
    Already certified in the state of Nebraska, Ruiz is the first Imperial officer in quite awhile who hasn’t had to attend the Law Enforcement Training Center in Grand Island for the full 16 weeks of education.
    After joining the Kimball PD, Ruiz was required to complete a short training at LETC, and it was there he first learned of Imperial from Imperial Police Officer Chris Bustillos, who had just been hired here.
    They were roommates, actually, and Ruiz said Bustillos talked highly of Imperial.
    “Chris was a big factor in my coming here. We hit it off at the academy, we have similar backgrounds and our kids are the same ages,” he noted.
    “I know the quality of his (Bustillos) background. He spoke highly of the chief and sergeant here,” Ruiz said
    “It seemed a good fit.”
    His wife and children liked the community when they visited earlier this year. He noted the town’s cleanliness and friendliness of its people.
    He and his wife Hayley have two boys, Blue, age 6, and Bo, 4. His wife is a former sheriff’s deputy in Larimer County and has been a boxing instructor.
    The entire family enjoys martial arts, he said, and he enjoys video games. They had a wrestling room at their home in Kimball.
    The couple has a video game business with equipment now placed in Sidney and Grant. They will continue to maintain the equipment as they share profits with the owners. In Grant, it’s located at the Route 61 Roller Dome.
    During his first few weeks on duty, Police Chief Ryan Wisnieski said Ruiz will be riding along with him and his other two officers, Sgt. Chad Ostmeyer and Bustillos to get familiar with the community.
    He’ll eventually move to the night shift.