9 LEOs To Be Honored With Medal Of Valor Awards
Two New York Police Department officers ambushed and killed responding to a 911 call and the rookie cop who took down the gunman are among those who will be honored Wednesday by President Joe Biden with the Medal of Valor, the nation's highest honor for bravery by a public safety officer. The three NYPD officers, a Houston police officer, Colorado police official, Ohio sheriff’s deputy and three FDNY firefighters are the nine who will be receiving medals in a White House ceremony. NYPD officer Wilbert Mora and his police partner Jason Rivera were shot Jan. 21, 2022, while responding to a call about a family dispute in a Harlem apartment. Officer Sumit Sulan shot and killed the gunman, ending the deadly encounter moments after it began. Rivera died that night, Mora was pronounced dead four days later. The fallen cops were no strangers to tensions between the NYPD and some of the communities they police; they'd both seen it growing up. Both sought to be catalysts of change when they became police officers, but neither got the chance they deserved, gunned down during a spate of shootings of police officers in 2022 in the city. “We know police officers put their lives on the line every day, and we ask them to do too much, to be counselors, social workers, psychologists; responding to drug overdoses, mental health crises, and more,” Biden said during his State of the Union speech. “We ask too much of them.”
Associated Press
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