hand up so he couldn’t fire off another round or pick the gun up to turn
it back on himself or on me.”
The struggle for the gun went on for a couple of seconds.
“Finally, I was able to pull his hand up enough and use my other hand
to slide the gun forward a couple of feet so neither one of us could reach
it,” Cummings said.
The man then stopped moving. While holding the gun, Cummings
walked toward the front of the store to look outside.
There was a divided roadway with a concrete grass median separating
the roadway. An ambulance was on the other side of the road, but down
closer to the corner. He saw a police car pull up, but no lights on. Then,
more units with lights and sirens on pulled up, stopped for a few seconds
and then drove away.
At that point, Cummings didn’t know that the gunman, only moments
before, had shot and killed someone else in another store and that
officers were responding to that call. As soon as the officers made it
across that median, Cummings was ordered to drop the gun and get on
the ground.
“I pushed the gun ahead of me and explained that I am an off-duty cop
and the guy inside had just shot himself,” Cummings said.
The Atlantic City officers took Cummings to the station to be interviewed. While there, “They wanted to make sure we were going to get to
the concert. They treated us above and beyond what I could expect,”
Cummings said.
Cummings said they made it to the beach for the concert right around
4 p.m., and they were moved up to the VIP area. They were surrounded
by retired officers and undercover Atlantic City Local 24 members.
“Every one of them came up to, not only just me, but my daughter and
my girlfriend just making sure everybody was OK, just making us feel as
comfortable as they could,” Cummings related. “We got to enjoy the concert. We went down for that and to do some shopping and the next thing
you know this incident happened. I just happened to be in the right place
at the right time.”
On Sept. 22, Kevin Lokaj of Local 375 awarded Cummings a medal of
valor. He was later honored with a proclamation from Bellmawr Mayor
Frank Filipek and members of Bellmawr Council. d
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