By TCISD Media Relations Department
Lt. Derik Fillmore’s return to Texas City ISD as a Sheriff’s Liaison Officer was more than just a coming home. It was a matter of coming full circle.
After graduating from Texas City High School in 1991, Fillmore joined the military, but after an injury sent him home from basic training, he found himself back at TCHS in an unlikely position – as a hall monitor.
“I was working at the dog track and there was a security guard at the high school who would come out and talk to me, and he said the high school was interested in starting a hall monitoring program,” he says. “So I went in and talked to the principal, Bill Martin and ended up coming in as a hall monitor at 18, 19 years old.”
It was that job as a hall monitor at TCHS, however, that would set Fillmore on his future career path. During his time working at the high school, he met numerous Texas City police officers who would come in at lunch and talk to him about a potential future in law enforcement.
“They would tell me I would be good at it; I said nah, that ain’t for me,” Fillmore says. “But more and more kept telling me that. It took me a while before I got into it, but 10 years later, I ended up in law enforcement and here I am now.”
He has done a little bit of everything over the course of his career. Fillmore started with the Galveston Police Department and rode in the motorcycle division before moving to the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office where he worked in the jail and patrol before being assigned to schools where he’s now the assistant division commander of the SLO division for TCISD.
“I’ve enjoyed being on the campuses and interacting with the kids; it’s the most work, but the most fulfilling,” he says. “To see them graduate … and then you see them out and about in the city, especially with things going on with police today, and they say hi and have a positive attitude with you; that’s great.”
Fillmore says he enjoys being a part of Texas City and TCISD and the community environment it embodies.
“Anytime I’ve gotten the opportunity to come back or to grow as far as in my career, I’ve stuck around and moved up the ladder,” he says. “It would be hard for me to leave the schools.”
