OMG! Tony has been selected to recieve an award for valor!

Padraig18

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Tue Jan-20-04 02:43 PM
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OMG! Tony has been selected to recieve an award for valor!

Edited on Tue Jan-20-04 02:57 PM by Padraig18

We just opened the mail, and Tony has a letter from the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police informing him that has been selected as one of the 5 finalists in the running to receive their annual "Award for Valor"! The story behind his nomination was reported last April in our local paper as follows:

Douglas County Republican
April 14, 2003

Deputy Disarms Gunman

Monday morning was supposed to be just an ordinary day for Corporal Antonio _____ of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department, but it turned out to be anything but normal, even though the deputy describes what happened as 'no big deal, really'.

Dep. ______ arrived at the courthouse at 7:55 that morning to work security in the courtroom, filling in for the regularly assigned deputy who had been taken ill the previous evening. As he approached the courthouse, he glanced across the street, where he said something unusual caught his eye.

"As I looked at the cars parked along the street, I noticed a pickup truck about halfway down the block with a man sitting in the bed, and that really struck me as unusual, since it was starting to rain. After that, I noticed that he appeared to be holding what looked like a hunting rifle with a scope.

I immediately called my dispatch and asked them to send me a backup unit from Tuscola P.D., but dispatch said that the Tuscola units were tied up on a bad wreck and that she would have to dispatch another deputy to my location, but that he was over 10 miles away and wouldn't arrive for 15 minutes, or longer. My shift commander then told me to 'watch and wait' but do nothing on my own, until my backup arrived.

This was a school morning and I had just seen kids walking toward the grade school when I pulled up, and I didn't think that this particular situation could wait until backup arrived, because of the danger to the kids. I deliberately disobeyed the shift commander and approached the pickup truck from the gunman's blind side. As I got closer to the truck, I recognized the man in the back as someone I had dealt with previously, and recalled that he seemed to be a reasonable person. I had served divorce papers on him, and remembered how sad he looked that day when I handed them to him. It bothered me, but it always bothers me to see people hurting.

I drew my weapon and called out to him as I got right behind him and told him who I was, and I asked him if he was OK. He told me that he was fine, so I asked him if he was fine, why was he sitting there in the rain holding a rifle. He told me very calmly that he was waiting for Judge ______ to arrive so that he could kill him for 'taking away my kids'. I thought it was a good sign that he was talking to me and not making any threatening gestures toward me with the rifle, so I kept talking to him.

As I continued to talk to him, I finally convinced him that whatever problems he had, killing a judge wasn't likely to solve them, and persuaded him to put the rifle down and get out of his truck, which he did. I then handcuffed him, secured his weapon and led him back to my patrol car after advising dispatch that he was in custody and that I would be en route to the jail with him shortly."

Contacted yesterday, Chief Deputy Darrell Cox called Corporal ______'s actions "one of the bravest, most selfless acts I've seen from a member of this department in my 13 years; he literally put his life on the line to protect those kids. I suspended him for 3 days for gross insubordination, but I shook his hand and gave him a hug before I did", Cox said. The deputy will face no further disciplinary action, he added.

Asked why he chose to act without waiting, Corporal ______ said "It was the kids, that's all I could think about. There was this guy with a rifle, and there were all these kids walking to school and not realizing that guy was there. Sometimes you just do what you have to do, rather than do what you're told to do. You make decisions and you accept the consequences of your actions. That's all I did, and I wish people would quit making such a big deal about it."

The gunman, whose name has not yet been made public, is being held at the Douglas County Safety and Detention center on preliminary charges of threatening a public official, unlawful use of a firearm, disorderly conduct and possession of a firearm within 500 feet of a school. He is scheduled to be arraigned later today where a judge is expected to set bond and order a mental fitness examination, a spokesman for the States Attorney's office said.

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