Police department hires new criminal investigator

The Hamburg Council, in a vote on July 8, approved the hiring of former U.S. Secret Service employee Angel Cabrera for the position of part-time criminal investigator with the Hamburg Police Department.

Cabrera’s basic duties will include following up on criminal activity, investigation of incidents such as burglaries and assaults—“anything of a serious nature,” said Hamburg Police Chief Pedro Rivera.

The department started looking for a part-time investigator in late May; Rivera called it a “good question” as to why there hadn’t been a criminal investigator before he started as chief in April.

The department was originally looking to hire retired state trooper Tom Weaver for the criminal investigator position. Weaver eventually went to work for the Berks County Detectives.

Cabrera had submitted an application with the hope of becoming a part-time borough police officer—but as far as the criminal investigator position went, Rivera said, “we looked at his experience and felt he would be a good fit.”

In addition to Cabrera’s three years of experience with the U.S. Secret Service, he had also worked as a criminal investigator for the Reading Police Department, as well as working in the Pennsylvania Adult Probation Office. All of Cabrera’s experience, Rivera said, will help to make him “an asset in terms of his technical knowledge of criminal investigation.”

As a bonus, Rivera said, Cabrera would arrive cheaply to the department, given that he’d already come equipped with “a firearm, leather gear, uniforms” and “hand-cuffs and such”; all the department would have to provide would be “writing instruments and a pad, a lot of investigative reports, a ball cap and a badge.”

Cabrera will start work with the department after completing the process and receiving a “certification number” with MPOETC, or the Municipal Police Officers’ Education and Training Commission.