Valor Awards
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“I had the right person with me. I had the right training
that was given to me for the whole situation,” he confided. “I
wouldn’t have changed anything.”
And when responses end in this matter, officers tend to be
humble with a just-doing-what-we-needed-to-do perspective.
But as Reyes and Ricker ran through the event, further review
taught them a valuable lesson they wanted to share.
“Anything can happen, anywhere,” Ricker asserted. “Although
we’re in a small town, people think nothing happens. But in the
blink of an eye, something happens and we almost got shot.”
The incident came to a happier ending than the officers ini-
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eyes as he struggled to pry Miles’ fingers from the gun. Miles
yelled repeatedly for the man to stand down, but he persisted.
“I punched my gun into his chest, and I’m thinking, ‘He’s got
to know this is over. He’s got to know that he has to let go of the
gun,’” Miles narrates. “But, he kept fighting.”
Miles has recounted this story many times since it happened
over a year ago, but it’s always this part of the story that makes
him pause while remembering the moment he realized he was
left with no choice but to pull the trigger.
“It was the weirdest thing. I swear every time I tell this story…”
Miles began before pausing, unsure of how to explain the expe-
tially expected. They had just been through training at the Acad-
emy to learn how to use trauma kits. They were able to plug the
suspect’s chest wounds long enough to call paramedics and get
a helicopter to air-lift him to the hospital.
“Paramedics said because of what we did, he ended up liv-
ing,” Ricker reported. “And moments earlier, we almost killed
him.”
George added that saving the suspect’s life made the incident
a little surreal. But he also knew the power of this positive out-
come.
“The takeaway is we both made it home,” Reyes confided.
“That’s what matters.” d
rience. “I was screaming in his face, and I could see he wasn’t
hearing a word I was saying. He was wearing a white T-shirt and
his T-shirt started glowing. The human brain is crazy. I put the
gun against his chest and I just let one go.”
It’s not easy for Miles to look back on the incident that led to
the loss of a life. Even at the Valor Awards, where he was honored
with the Silver Medal and applauded by a room full of heroes, he
couldn’t bring himself to celebrate. Instead, he repeats the three
words that led him to run toward the gunshots that night.
“Duty to act. Those are big words,” Miles specifies. “Everybody
in here has the duty to act. This is about all of us and the threat
that we face every moment of every day.” d
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