SAN ANTONIO – Officer Marcus Trujillo of the San Antonio Police Department has three pieces of advice for 45 of his brother and sisters in blue who are in Washington, D.C., for president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration: Sleep while you can, dress in layers and be ready to stand up for a very long time.
Trujillo, a traffic reporter on "Good Morning San Antonio," traveled to the nation’s capital to work security detail for President Barack Obama’s first inauguration in 2009. It was the first of three presidential inaugurations that SAPD officers have worked.
Trujillo considers the inauguration a highlight of his career.
“I think for me, personally, being able to tell my kids and eventually my grandkids that yes, this was a historic event for the nation as a whole,” Trujillo said. “But it was also history making for our department and that I was a part of it.”
Trujillo said what surprised him the most was the enormous crowd that showed up at the inauguration in below-freezing temperatures.
“I’ve worked many events here in San Antonio, and you can take all the Fiesta events I’ve worked, put those all together, and it still just didn’t compare to the volume of people that were down there for the inauguration,” Trujillo said.
Trujillo said he was proud to represent the city of San Antonio on that cold January day.
The SAPD officers who traveled to D.C. this year were sworn in, or deputized, as law officers at the D.C. Armory at noon Thursday.
They will be part of a vast network of law enforcement at the nation’s capital for Friday’s inauguration.