WWW.NJCOPSMAGAZINE.COM ■ DECEMBER 2014
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2014 Valor Awards – Gold Medal of Valor
Under-cover angels
When an undercover drug bust runs into trouble,
Bergen County officers have their brother’s back
Paramus Local 186
Detective Dmitriy Mazur
had been on loan to the
Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office for six months
and assigned to various
Meritorious Service Award
undercover drug cases tryDetective Betina Finch,
ing to work his way up the
Detective Damian Pope
ladder to score a big bust.
Bergen County Sheriff’s Department On April 14, 2014, one of
these encounters was
Local 134
about to go down.
Sergeant Israel Brown
Mazur met up to make
Detective Michael Perez
a purchase of a few hundred dollars of marijuana
Detective Louis Mordaga
from a known drug dealer.
Detective Charade Collier
The dealer got into his
Detective Karolina Gregorek
vehicle, and then another
Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office
male approached the door.
He pointed a gun at Mazur
Local 221
and demanded all of his
belongings and money. The incident grew worse as two other men
aggressively handled the undercover detective.
But Mazur held his cool, and trusted that his fellow officers had his
back. Listening in on an audio recording of the ordeal, Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Sergeant Israel Brown ordered the detective’s
backup team – Bergen County Sheriff’s Department Local 134 Detectives Betina Finch and Damian Pope, and Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Local 221 Detectives Michael Perez, Louis Mordaga,
Charade Collier and Karolina Gregorek – to move in and extract
Mazur.
The gunman, seeing the team moving in on him, started to fire,
hitting Mazur twice: one in the hip and another in the left leg. In
response, two backup officers returned fire and struck the gunman
multiple times. Another individual was taken into custody by the rest
of the backup team.
Gold Medal of Valor
Detective Dmitriy Mazur
Paramus Local 186
“They were there quickly and as soon as shots rang out they
returned fire and did what they had to do,” Mazur emphasized. “They
did a great job. If it wasn’t for them, probably, they would have shot
me more times and I probably wouldn’t be standing here.”
Mazur said after the Valor Awards that he thought his backup team
should receive the Gold Medal of Valor since they’re the officers who
showed up and fired. Looking back, Mazur had time to reflect on
what went down that night, as well as what saved his life:
“Being a patrol officer before going undercover I had the tactical
training for it, so I wasn’t really nervous upon seeing the weapon. And
I think that helped me keeping my cool,” he surmised. “If I had panicked, things could have gone worse from the get go.”
And although Mazur couldn’t elaborate on the ongoing case, he
had some advice for others who might find themselves in a similar
environment:
“Stay calm and in your head think about all the possible outcomes
and choose the best one for you,” he offered. “I wish we didn’t have
to go through this – wish the suspect didn’t bring a gun – but it’s part
of the job. In that situation, with the cards that we were dealt, I think
we handled it well. I would go back into that same situation and do
it all over again.”
‘Action’-packed
A burglar’s blood trail led one
cop to the fight of his life
On Aug. 13, 2013, at approximately 9:55 pm, Franklin Township Local 154 Officer Robert Brown was investigating a residential burglary. Upon learning that the suspect had cut
himself while committing the burglary, Brown conducted a
canvass of the area, and located an individual wearing a white
t-shirt covered in blood. The officer then conducted an investigative stop on the individual, and what followed reads like a
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