2018 NJSPBA Valor Awards
Something in the stare
A domestic led Green Brook Officers
Anthony Pepe and Kevin O’Connor to
come face to face with an intoxicated man
threatening to kill his ex-wife. The house
was dark. The front door was shut. The
rest of the family stood on the front lawn
in some state of fear.
And when Pepe and O’Connor finally
encountered the man, he was standing at
a gun cabinet loading a 32-round maga-
zine into a 9mm Beretta.
“He gave us a blank stare,” Pepe re-
called about that July 13 night. “A really
odd, eerie stare.”
Repeated commands to drop the weap-
on went ignored. There was no confirma-
tion of whether there was a round in the
chamber.
Pepe and O’Connor didn’t wait to
find out. Within 10 feet of the man, they
lunged at him and took him down. After
Bronze Medal of Valor
Detective Stephon Knox
Detective Pierre McCall
Detective James Williams
Plainfi eld Local 19
a bit of a wrestling match, Pepe wound up
on the man’s back. O’Connor was able to
wrestle away the gun.
“Honestly, we didn’t know if he had one
in the chamber,” O’Connor shared. “We
were kind of crouched up behind the wall
getting ready for it. It was a crazy situa-
tion, and it worked out as best as it could
have.”
The crazy part might be that both Pepe
and O’Connor described their successful
response as a result of knowing they had
the time to act. It might have been a mat-
ter of seconds, but their actions went by
the book for the same basic reasons as
many of the acts of valor being honored
on this night.
“I was able to use tunnel vision there
probably,” Pepe confirmed. “Training and
a little bit of experience kind of kicked in,
and we just took action. Thinking on our
Bronze Medal of Valor
Offi cer Anthony Pepe
Offi cer Kevin O’Connor
Green Brook Local 398
feet worked out for the suspect and us
and the family.”
Beyond the successful response and
recognition from their bosses, the great
reward for these two officers came at the
NJ State PBA Valor Awards.
“It feels good to be honored for doing
your job,” Pepe added. “Just knowing that
not just the department, but the state,
the brotherhood and the sisterhood have
your back is a good feeling.”
Stronger together
When the unmistakable sound of gun-
shots echoed on the west side of Plainfield
on April 4, Plainfield Local 19 members
Pierre McCall, James Williams and Ste-
phon Knox immediately jumped in their
patrol car to find the shooter.
Williams was in the driver’s seat when
the three narcotics detectives encoun-
tered a suspect walking in the middle of
the street just a few blocks away. It didn’t
take long for the officers to confirm that
this was the shooter they had set out to
find and stop.
“He sees our well-known narcotics ve-
hicle and immediately pulls out a gun and
starts shooting at us,” Williams described.
“A bunch of the bullets hit the driver door.”
Wearing plain clothes but armored
by bulletproof vests, the officers jumped
out of the vehicle without hesitation to
confront the gunman. When the suspect
turned to flee the scene on foot, the offi-
cers each responded on instinct, refusing
to let the shooter get away. Williams fear-
lessly chased after the gunman on foot,
while McCall and Knox sped in the patrol
vehicle to corner the suspect ahead.
“We were ready to get into the fight
with him,” Knox recalls of the automatic
response that took place when Williams
took after the gunman. “I saw the flash of
the gun. We knew exactly what was going
on during the incident.”
Williams and the suspect exchanged
gunfire during the foot pursuit until Knox
and McCall drove ahead of the suspect
and cut him off with the patrol vehicle.
Thanks to the seamless teamwork of
these detectives, the suspect was arrest-
ed without further incident. The gunman
was later charged with three counts of at-
tempted murder of the detectives.
“It sounds cliché, but when stuff hap-
pens, you immediately go back to your
training,” Williams said on behalf of the
three detectives, who each have six years
on the job. “You don’t realize you know
something until something crazy hap-
pens, and then it just clicks into your head
and you react.”
Some would assume that successful-
ly navigating an incident like this would
strengthen the connections of the officers
involved, but this heroic trio insisted that
there is nothing that could bring them
closer than they already were before the
bullets began flying. Still, it’s clear that
the brotherhood and expertise of McCall,
Williams and Knox played a pivotal role in
their ability to work together. Their cou-
rageous actions to end the threat made
them the recipients of the NJSPBA Bronze
Medal of Valor.
“We’re just thankful to be here,” said
McCall. “All that matters is that we’re safe
after going through a situation like that.
It’s good to know that you’re not in the
fight alone.”
www.njcopsmagazine.com
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