Page 33 - June 2017 Newsletter

Coming Out On Top
11th District Officers tell the story of how they won the fight that earned them National Top Cops honors
n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
n PHOTO BY ED CARATTINI, JR.
Thunderous applause reverberated from Washing- ton, D.C. to Chicago. The overpowering ovation escorted Chicago Police Detective Arturo Bracho and Officers Mi- chael Cantore, Antonio Herrera and Alejandro Lagunas when they stepped up to accept their Top Cops honor, the award the National Association of Police Organizations annually bestows during National Police Week to law en- forcement officers for the most extraordinary and selfless acts of bravery and courage during the past year. Three such ovations erupted within a minute.
Finally, accolades and praise emanated for the prowess of Chicago Police Officers. And the ovations for their ex- traordinary response reverberated through National Po- lice Week with the entire profession watching.
Ask Detective Bracho and Officers Cantore, Herrera and Lagunas about the response, and they will insist that their heroics consisted primarily of surviving an attack from a 43-time repeat offender intent on killing a copper who hit three of them, including life-threatening shots to Bracho. During a week President Kennedy initially dedicated in 1962 to remember fallen officers, Bracho, Cantore, Her- rera and Lagunas could easily have been cast in the same light that remembered brothers from Dallas and Baton Rouge in 2017.
But they survived the ambush on that March 14, 2016 night, and that’s what the profession honored so power- fully. As they stood before 25 other Top Cops representing agencies from Phoenix to Boston to New York City to Ore- gon to Antigo, Wisconsin – “warriors” as Detective Bracho recognized – and hundreds of others in the lavish Omni Shoreham Hotel grand ballroom, they celebrated what a fellow officer told them that night in March: “It’s amazing that we’re not preparing for a police funeral.”
And, as a result, the emotion, gratitude and triumph of “happy to be here” reverberated all the way from Wash- ington, D.C. to Chicago.
“We’re glad we’re here this day,” Detective Bracho an- nounced during his acceptance speech for the group. “We’re here because we all took action. We’re back on the streets, and I think it’s because we didn’t let him stop us that night. And we’re not going to stop doing our job.”
From left, Chicago Police O cers and Top Cops Arturo Bracho, Antonio Herrera, Michael Cantore and Alejandro Lagunas
They know how to do their jobs
The Chicago Police Officers were honored alongside Massachusetts State Troopers who saved one of their own from bleeding out, then launched a manhunt to nail the shooter who killed another brother; the New Jersey cops who captured the terrorist known as the “Chelsea Bomb- er;” and the Antigo, Wisconsin officer who took out an 18-year-old marching toward starting the next school shooting tragedy. But all of these warriors honored at Top Cops had more than selfless acts of bravery and courage in common.
They reminded about the fine line between being hon- ored and being remembered. They confirmed the exten- uating circumstances factoring into responses, such as available manpower, which often leave officers in seem- ingly insurmountable situations that have to be resolved in a split-second. They proved that following training pro- tocol and proper procedure is the only way to win these fights.
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