Valor Awards
Say yes to the dress
Could this be the guy, the bur-
glary suspect, the purse snatcher
Lieutenant Scott Ricker
who had warrants out on him in
Patrolman George Reyes
North Morris? Residents had seen
North Morris Local 198
this man walking down a street in
town wearing a dress.
“He supposedly looked like an old lady,” recalled Patrolman
George Reyes, a North Morris Local 198 member who took the
9-1-1 call on March 31, 2016. “We had a good description of him
from people on the scene, so when we went to his grandpar-
ents’ house, we knew who he was.”
Reyes, who has been on job for 10 years, stepped inside the
house with Lieutenant Scott Ricker backing up. The suspect
spotted them and tried to run. Reyes and Ricker chased him
down the hall, but he slammed the door in their face.
They reached up to push the door open. Reyes took the lead
and burst inside.
“I saw something in his hand and he spun around,” Ricker
described. “And George let him have it.”
Reyes knew what was in the suspect’s hand, and it wasn’t a
purse.
“He was pointing a long gun at me. I saw a long gun in his
hands,” Reyes explained. “That’s all I remember. I told him to
drop it. He didn’t. So I fired.”
Silver Medal of Valor
Talk about a timely shooting.
“If it wasn’t for George, I would have gotten shot,” Ricker
added.
When responses end in this matter, the natural inclination
is to review and make sure the proper action was taken. Reyes
knew exactly what contributed to he and Ricker, a 20-year vet-
eran, being able to end the threat.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 53
Duty to act
Officer Sheehan Miles tells it how
it is.
Officer Sheehan Miles
“Guns and drugs are not unique
Trenton Local 11
to any Trenton cop,” he says.
But on Aug. 27, 2016, when the
Trenton Local 11 officer heard two nearby gunshots while driv-
ing with his wife through the city at night, he couldn’t help but
sit up and take notice.
“I literally checked my wife for holes,” Miles recalls. “That’s
how close the gunshot was.”
After telling his wife to take cover behind their vehicle, Miles
spotted a man tucking the gun inside of his waistband no more
than six feet from their car.
“I had him at gunpoint and I ordered him to get down. The
guy was totally compliant,” Miles explains. “Then I straddled
over him like I’ve done 100 times.”
Miles is used to falling back on his training from the 15 years
that he’s worked in the urban setting, where his use of force is
constantly tested in response to street violence. But the all-too-
routine procedure of disarming a civilian took a surprising turn
when a second actor jumped on Miles’ back and began to wres-
tle him for the gun.
Hundreds of bystanders circled the scene to watch the two
men grapple. At this point, Miles had a gun in each hand – the
one he had disarmed from the first suspect, and his own.
Silver Medal of Valor
52
NEW JERSEY COPS
■ DECEMBER 2017
“Now I’m fighting this guy and we’re struggling for control of
the gun,” Miles details. “We’re face-to-face.”
The brawl for the weapon unfolded, all the while the first sus-
pect was still belly-down on the sidewalk below Miles’ legs. It
wasn’t until later investigation that Miles found out that the two
suspects were brothers who had taken refuge from Liberia in
America.
Miles could see the relentless determination in the assailant’s
CONTINUED ON PAGE 53