Page 55 - November 2021

CPMF honorees show how sharp they can be
n BY DAN CAMPANA
A call to investigate a stabbing escalated into an attack on a Chicago Police sergeant and the quick actions of two officers to end the threat of a knife-wielding suspect.
The efforts of Officers Pete Gurskis and Richard Johnson earned them the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation’s Offi- cers of the Month award. They, along with Sergeant Angela Sal- gado, were honored during an October ceremony.
In early September 2020, the trio were called to the 4900 block of South Lacrosse Avenue on a report of an aggravated battery involving a knife. They learned an offender had stabbed some- one, and tried to stab two other people in a residential driveway.
The investigation led the officers to Vittum Park on West 50th Street, where they encountered a man suspected of the stab- bing. Despite the approaching officers’ commands to stop and show his hands, the man instead picked up a black bag and started toward Gurskis. The officers continued to shout orders at the man to show his hands, but he started to walk toward Sal- gado, who backed away in an effort to maintain distance.
Salgado used her Taser, which struck the man in his torso and caused him to fall to the ground. That’s when the officers saw the man had been hiding a butcher knife with a 10-inch blade inside the black bag he had just picked up.
The man was on the ground briefly before getting up and charging toward Salgado, grabbing her vest cover and repeat- edly stabbing her vest. At that point, Gurskis and Johnson fired multiple shots at the man, who fell to the ground. An ambu- lance was called immediately, but the man died of his wounds, authorities said.
Salgado’s abdomen was punctured by the butcher knife when the suspect’s repeated stabbing motions penetrated her vest’s front ballistic panel. She was transported to the hospital for treatment of her injury.
“Thanks to our awardees risking their lives to stop a danger- ous knife-wielding offender from further injuring other citizens, it is my honor to name these officers our October Officers of the Month,” CPMF Executive Director Phil Cline said at the cere- mony.
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