Brad Schmitt

brad@tennessean.com

Cecilia Gomez battled leukemia most of her childhood.

While her friends played outside in her hometown in Argentina, Gomez — too dizzy and nauseated to join them — spent listless hours in front of the television.

When she was 12, the girl finally found her favorite show.

“Sin Condena,” Without Conviction, was a series about real crimes that police had solved but the perpetrators were never convicted. Gomez got sucked in.

One episode changed her life. It featured Sophia, a teenager who inspired Gomez to start battling human trafficking.

Now a Nashvillian, Gomez recently joined the Metro Police Department to intensify that battle, a journey that so far has included a bullet wound and a broken rib.

Full of hope and dreams, Sophia at 19 found a job in a big city as a nanny. But when she got there, Sophia was locked in a tiny bedroom, beaten and raped. Repeatedly.

Gomez found herself deeply moved by Sophia’s story.

“I didn’t expect it, to be honest. But they show how skinny she was with all the bruises. And she was so weak. She was young, and she looked so vulnerable,” Gomez said.

“I was mad. I felt so frustrated.”

About 10 years later, Gomez met a man from Franklin, Tenn., who was in Argentina on a mission trip with his church.

They fell in love, got married and moved to Williamson County — where the marriage quickly fell apart.

Gomez started cleaning houses, and through that job, she met a pastor who told her about a job with a new agency, Free for Life International, that was battling human trafficking.

Memories of Sophia on “Sin Condena” came flooding back.

“Yes, yes,” Gomez said. “This is what I want to do.”

She proved a little underwhelming at her first interview.

“When Cecilia showed up, her English wasn’t very good,” Free for Life founder Colette Bercu said.

“She said, ‘I want to do outreach for the Hispanic community.’ I asked, ‘Do you have a car?’ ‘No, but I’ll figure it out.’ ”

Gomez got the job anyway, and indeed, she figured it out. Bercu soon figured out that Gomez had a gift in getting trafficking victims to open up and to trust her.

Gomez became invaluable to the victims, to the agency and to police investigators prosecuting the crimes.

She sat with victims and translated for them for hours as they spoke with police or contacted social service agencies or got treatment at hospitals. In that process, Gomez often drew close to the women, sometimes visiting them for years after their cases closed.

One victim’s children called Gomez “Aunt CeCe” and often drew pictures for her.

Free for Life soon opened a separate Hispanic division called En Accion, with Gomez at the helm.

“She’s tenacious,” Bercu said. “The girl doesn’t have any quit in her.”

Gomez discovered there were few bilingual Metro Police officers and few bilingual FBI agents. But Gomez saw compassion in the way police handled trafficking victims.

Officers often reached into their own pockets to pay for hotel rooms, clothes or food for victims.

So Gomez decided to become a police officer herself. Even though that seemed a little scary, especially for a foreigner who is only about 4-foot-11 and 120 pounds.

“I knew it was a dangerous thing, even when I was a civilian,” Gomez said. “I didn’t want to tell my mom what I was doing.”

First steps: Improve her English, become a U.S. citizen and get a college degree in criminal justice. That all happened between 2009 and 2014, when she graduated from Bethel University and was sworn in at the federal courthouse.

Gomez also got her gun permit during that time, a scarring experience. A novice shooter at the range accidentally discharged a gun, and the bullet ricocheted and grazed Gomez’s stomach, cutting it.

“That burned for hours,” she said, wincing.

Gomez got accepted to the police academy last year. The military style, legal language and all that running proved to be hard for her.

During one training session on fighting, she took a knee to the side, and one of her ribs broke.

But Gomez persevered, graduating in December.

And now comes the hardest part of all.

Like all police officers, she’ll have to serve in patrol for three years before being considered for a job battling human traffickers.

Even then, there are no guarantees, though her patrol commander, Sebastian Gourdin, said she has a good shot to get her dream assignment.

“She’s a great asset for the police department,” Gourdin said, noting she speaks Spanish, she’s a woman and Gomez has experience dealing with trafficking victims.

“It’s a trifecta,” he said. “She can reach out to certain individuals who otherwise might be hesitant to reach out to the police department.”

After seven months in patrol, Gomez said she remains intensely interested in helping trafficking victims.

“It’s my goal and passion,” she said.

Reach Brad Schmitt at 615-259-8384 or on Twitter @bradschmitt.



