NEW YORK—Nelson Vergara, an officer from the Manhattan Warrant Squad had just finished an anti-terrorism exercise. It was around 4:30 a.m. on June 24, 2012. As Vergara walked to his home in the Bronx, a group of four males who were drinking on the street started yelling at him.
One of the men threw a bottle at Vergara. Shortly after, a vehicle pulled up and a man got out.
“He started shooting at the group, and I was caught in the middle,” said Vergara, 37, an Iraq veteran.
Vergara was shot in the right leg and left shoulder. The shooter, armed with a nine-millimeter pistol, was trying to kill the bottle-thrower in retaliation for an earlier altercation, Vergara said.
The man who threw the bottle got out unscathed. Vergara shot the assailant.
“He got into the getaway car and went straight to the hospital, because he was dying,” Vergara said.
The man who threw the bottle then tried to escape, but Vergara, though wounded, caught and handcuffed him.
His wife Maria, at home with their baby daughter, watched in panic from their apartment window. She said her husband is a hero.
“He’s not afraid of anything,” Maria Vergara said.
Finest of the Finest
Vergara was one of 41 NYPD officers who were honored as the Finest of the Finest at a Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) luncheon at The Water Club on the East River in Manhattan on Nov. 21.
PBA President Patrick Lynch said the awards were about “heroism that most wouldn’t believe.”
“Today is one of those special days during the year when we get to come here and honor our own,” he said.
Greg Dolan, a member of the PBA’s Finest Committee, which nominates officers for awards, said the winners were selected from hundreds of potential recipients.
“We were looking for extreme acts of heroism and lifesaving incidents,” he said.
Dolan nominated several officers from Manhattan, including Michael Massett and Peter Rogers, who shot a man who pulled a knife on them as they tried to arrest him for smoking marijuana.
It was the first time either officer had to use a firearm on the job. The man, in his 50s with long dreadlocks, was killed.
“Hopefully, we never have to do it again,” Massett said. “It’s the last thing you want to do as a cop—our main job is to preserve life, not to take it.”
Michael Smith and Gregory Gordon, officers on Staten Island, were tipped off that an armed robbery was about to take place. After they found the suspect, he ran, and then opened fire on them.
“We shot one time, and received the fire arm,” Smith said.
The gunman was arrested and hospitalized.
Devon Davis, 27, was working in Harlem, around 6:30 p.m. on March 25, 2012, when “me, my partner, and two other cops, were going to stop a group of seven guys.”
“Five guys broke off the group,” and then one guy broke away from them, suggesting that he might have a firearm.
As the four officers chased the man, Davis, who used to do track at high school, was the swiftest, and got within five feet of the man. The other police officers were perhaps half a block behind.
“He [the man] said he didn’t do anything wrong. Then he tripped and fell, and dropped a gun on the street. Then he picked up the gun and fired shots, and I fired two shots,” Davis said.
Both of Davis’s bullets hit the 23-year-old man, who received 10 years in prison. Davis was unharmed.
John Lopes was in the Police Academy office on March 5, when he heard fellow officer Paula Winters yelling. Winters had been exercising with Brian McKee when McKee had a heart attack.
“She just started screaming for help. I’m an EMT so I just grabbed all my equipment.”
Lopes and Winters administered CPR to McKee until an ambulance arrived. McKee survived. All three were at the award ceremony and received a standing ovation from their peers. McKee hugged Lopes to thank him for saving his life.
Joseph Koch was off duty in Jamaica, Queens, on Father’s Day when he heard a 10-year-old boy screaming for help. The boy’s mother was being beaten by a man—the woman’s ex-boyfriend.
“He was smashing her head into a concrete wall,” Koch said. “She had to get 27 staples in her head.”
Koch struggled with the man, before shooting him in the neck, stomach, and hand. Koch’s fourth bullet hit his own hand.
Koch has had four surgeries to restore movement to his left hand. His ring and little fingers can’t really move, and the middle finger was also affected.
Despite his hand being disabled, Koch said he is “just proud to be a police officer, always.”
“It has its exciting moments, and its sad moments, but I’m always just proud to be a police officer.”
---
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association’s Finest of the Finest 2013
Eddie Wong and Annette Lancaster were injured as they rescued a couple from a burning car.
Officers Michael Levay and Lukasz Kozicki were shot on a Manhattan-bound N train when they tried to stop a man who was walking between cars.
Off-duty officers Eugene Donnelly and Ryan Bracconeri chased down a man brandishing a pistol in the Bronx.
Officers Robert Sinishtaj and Craig Matthews pursued a suspect outside the Empire State Building and shot him when he turned around and pointed a gun at them.
A masked man burst in with a loaded semi-automatic firearm and announced a hold up when Daniel Castillo and Michael Manley were having coffee in a diner. The officers identified themselves and yelled at the man to drop the weapon. The man fled and was apprehended after a car chase.
Martin Hayes and Danielle Roventini responded to a report of shots fired at an Atlantic Avenue rooftop. The officers discovered two gunmen aiming at each other. When one of the men pointed a gun at them, the officers shot at and arrested both men.
Officers Richard Galvez and Jonathan McMilleon from Brooklyn found two men wrestling to gain control of a handgun. One of the men got control of the weapon and shot at officer Galvez, injuring him. Galvez then returned fire. The man fled and was arrested a short time later.
After a car chase involving a gunman and several other police cars, Stephen Dimario maneuvered his unmarked patrol car to stop the suspect, and then shot the suspect.
Officers Eder Loor and Luckson Merisme were in northern Manhattan trying to detain a disturbed man. The man pulled a knife on the officers and stabbed Loor’s right temple. The man was eventually apprehended.
Brooklyn South officers Bradley Tirol, Benigno Gonzalez, Lyheem Oliver, and Sambath Ouk, and Police Sgt. Patrick Quigley were involved in a foot pursuit of an armed suspect, and then a violent struggle to apprehend him.
Officers Keith Dsouza and Daniel Loffredo responded to a stabbing in southern Brooklyn, where a young man had been stabbed in the shoulder. The stabber approached the officers from behind and lunged at them. The officers shot the man nine times, killing him.
Jovaniel Cordova and Police Sgt. Mourad Mourad approached a man who was acting suspiciously. The man pointed a gun at them. The officers opened fire, and the man was killed.
Eric Iocco, Nicholas Basilone, Sharna Durham, and Kevin Golden from the 111th Precinct in Queens confronted and a disturbed man who stabbed himself, a woman, and then turned on the officers. The man was killed after a standoff.
Augustine Gonzalez stepped back and shot a man who lunged at him at a housing project. The man was hospitalized.
A suspect had just stabbed his wife eight times, seriously wounding her. The man then attacked officer Brannon, who shot the man in the torso. Everyone survived.
