Valor Awards
Gold Medal of Valor
Officer Nick Gambino
Officer Anthony Chiarello
Franklin Township Local 154
Meritorious Service Award
Officer William Poling Officer Patrick Clyne
Franklin Township Local 154
Chance Encounters
2016 NJSPBA
Valor Awards
Franklin Township officers end threat posed by a known criminal
Cops vigilantly look out for bad guys. It’ s an aspect of the job as fundamental as putting on the badge every morning.
“ You step out( of your patrol car), you speak to somebody, they have a warrant, you arrest them,” summed up Franklin Township Local 154 member Nick Gambino.“ It happens every day throughout the state, throughout the country, and it’ s very simple. This one went sideways, however, and thankfully we were ready for it.”
Indeed, a not-so-simple incident on April 9 started when Gambino and his partner, Local 154 member Anthony Chiarello, were on patrol during the evening watch. With the contents of the day’ s hot sheet in mind, the officers focused on a male walking down the street who was known to have an active child support warrant and who was also a suspect in a recent shooting.
“ There is a ton of foot traffic in that area,” Gambino described.“ So whenever you see somebody walking by, you are looking for faces. He was listed in our hot sheet. We knew we were looking out for him.” They approached. The suspect ran. The officers followed.“ We were looking to give chase and keep eyes on him,” Gambino recounted.“ We had called it in to dispatch, so we knew we had some extra units coming our way. We knew we would be able to corner him and surround him. We didn’ t know he had a gun.”
During the course of the pursuit, the suspect briefly evaded the officers when he ran down into a creek. But they were able to strategically position themselves where the suspect exited the creek around the block.
“ We kind of knew the general area where he would be( because) we both knew him to be the suspect in a shooting two months prior where several people identified him as the shooter. He shot somebody in the exact same area,” Chiarello related.“ So we got back in the car, circled around and were able to locate him right next to a house.”
Meanwhile, Local 154 members William Poling and Patrick Clyne, hearing the foot pursuit over the police radio, raced toward the area to assist.
“ When we heard the call, we were an area away,” Clyne established.“ For that incident, you could tell there was an urgency, so yeah, you get there as fast as you can.”
In a textbook approach maneuver, the four officers began to close off the suspect’ s egress opportunities.
“ It was a good spread out for all of us,” Poling emphasized.“ Pat was ahead of everybody. I was behind everybody. Nick and
Anthony were in the middle, so it was kind of like a triangle. It couldn’ t have been a better situation for the way we arrived.”
The cornered suspect attempted to break into a residence, but when that failed, he made his final mistake.
“ Officer Chiarello mentioned about 20 seconds before( the suspect) fired his first shot,‘ Be careful because he carries guns,’” Gambino noted.“ He turned a gun on us and fired a shot at us. We returned fire and neutralized the suspect.”
The incident then quickly turned from a pursuit to a lifesaving mission, as Clyne began performing CPR on the downed suspect until an ambulance arrived on scene.
“ It’ s obviously not what you want to happen when you are going to work every day,” Gambino confirmed.“ Unfortunately he put us in that situation, and I’ m just fortunate that my partner and Officers Clyne and Poling were able to walk away that night.”
Reflecting on a call these officers will never forget, Chiarello took a moment to credit the training, cooperation and state of mind that led to this fortunate outcome for him and his fellow officers.
“ Your whole career, you never really think you’ re going to get shot at, but it’ s always in the back of your mind,” he elaborated.“ It all happened really quickly, and we were definitely lucky that night that we handled it accordingly. We give credit to our training that automatically kicked in that night. And we’ re thankful we had enough units on the road to back us up and thankfully everybody went home safe that night.” d
www. njcopsmagazine. com ■ DECEMBER 2016 51