It is all too easy to forget the heroic acts daily performed by police officers across the country while in the line of duty.
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Here are 6 astonishingly heroic acts performed by police officers:
1. Deputy Jennifer Fulford-Salvano in Florida received the IACP Officer of the Year award for taking 10 rounds while saving children from men who attempted a drug trafficking heist against their mother.
While the other officers backed off to check out other parts of the house, Salvano, who knew the kids were in the garage, found them hiding and locked inside their van. After the men discovered them and opened fire, Salvano endured an intense 47 seconds of fire before disabling both men,
as reported by PoliceOne.com.
2. Emergency Service Unit Detective Brian Glacken in New York City imperiled his own life while grabbing a woman attempting suicide after she had just flung herself from the ledge of a four-story building.
The Daily Mail reported that bystanders called the police when the woman, who had just been dumped by her boyfriend and lost her job that same day, began pacing the ledge and declaring she was going to jump. Glacken fumbled with the woman’s weight and struggles for a few perilous seconds before another detective rushed up behind them and pulled them both to safety.
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3. NYPD officer Frank Serpico is famous for blowing the whistle in the 1960s and 70s on police corruption in the department.
Serpico refused to take bribes like the other officers, and he won the NYPD’s Medal of Honor after he was shot point blank in the face while engaging a drug dealer when the other officers present did nothing.
Serpico’s story was made famous through the 1973 film Serpico starring Al Pacino.
4. After pulling over a man for speeding, Sergeant Patrick Hildenbrand of New York was startled to find that the man was speeding to get his choking 22-month son to a hospital.
While driving them in his own car to the hospital, Hildenbrand simultaneously performed CPR and saved the boy’s life,
ABC News reported.
5. Officer James Nelson was killed during 9/11 while evacuating people from the 27th floor of one of the buildings after staunchly refusing to leave the collapsing building and the people who were trapped inside.
Nelson was known for saying, “When I go out of this world, I want to know I made a difference.”
6. After being shot five times in the face, dominant arm, and chest by the boyfriend of the shoplifting woman he was taking into custody, California officer Marcus Young had the high school cadet accompanying him place his gun in his uninjured, non-dominant hand while the boyfriend tried to enter the unoccupied police car to search for another gun. Young shot him before he could injure anyone else.
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