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LAPD Heroics
National media likes to take every jab they can at LAPD, but I bet this didn't make the news many places:
L.A. OFFICERS SAVE YOUNG GIRL FROM FREIGHT TRAIN
With the public and the press often finding every opportunity to criticize
officers who pin on the badge, it's nice when the media gives a little
attention to heroic acts by police officers -- which we all know is a more
common occurrence then some want to admit.
Thursday night near 8 p.m., Los Angeles police Officer Thomas Case
responded to a 911 call to find a 10-year-old autistic girl walking down
the railroad tracks, as a freight train came barreling dangerously close.
At a press conference the next day, Officer Case stood next to the little
girl he saved, and said he just did what any other officer would have
done. "We knew we couldn't get to the girl prior to the train getting to
her without driving right down the tracks. So we took the cars and went
down the tracks. We arrived and snatched her off the track and handed her
off to (another) officer and his partner here, and they got her as far
away from the tracks as possible (to keep her from being hit by any debris
that the train might kick up)," he said.
Spokesperson Hayley Purece said, Officer Case was the "first to reach the
individual, and without due regard for the safety of his own life, lunged
onto the tracks and snatched 10-year-old Alex Diaz only seconds before the
train would have hit her." It seems that some bystanders had tried to coax
the little girl off the tracks, but the autistic child was not responding.
Lt. Horace Frank explained how a quick response was the key to saving the
little girl. "The 911 call came at 8 p.m. It was dispatched at 8:01 p.m.
At 8:03 p.m. the first officer arrived on the scene, and at 8:04 p.m. he
made his way alongside the tracks and got hold of her."
Apparently the girl's mother, who is a single parent with two other young
children, was giving her 6-year-old a bath, when she realized that Alex
was not in the house and that the kitchen's sliding glass door was open --
which is when she phoned police. But already, by then, another call had
come in reporting the girl walking down the tracks.
L.A. OFFICERS SAVE YOUNG GIRL FROM FREIGHT TRAIN
With the public and the press often finding every opportunity to criticize
officers who pin on the badge, it's nice when the media gives a little
attention to heroic acts by police officers -- which we all know is a more
common occurrence then some want to admit.
Thursday night near 8 p.m., Los Angeles police Officer Thomas Case
responded to a 911 call to find a 10-year-old autistic girl walking down
the railroad tracks, as a freight train came barreling dangerously close.
At a press conference the next day, Officer Case stood next to the little
girl he saved, and said he just did what any other officer would have
done. "We knew we couldn't get to the girl prior to the train getting to
her without driving right down the tracks. So we took the cars and went
down the tracks. We arrived and snatched her off the track and handed her
off to (another) officer and his partner here, and they got her as far
away from the tracks as possible (to keep her from being hit by any debris
that the train might kick up)," he said.
Spokesperson Hayley Purece said, Officer Case was the "first to reach the
individual, and without due regard for the safety of his own life, lunged
onto the tracks and snatched 10-year-old Alex Diaz only seconds before the
train would have hit her." It seems that some bystanders had tried to coax
the little girl off the tracks, but the autistic child was not responding.
Lt. Horace Frank explained how a quick response was the key to saving the
little girl. "The 911 call came at 8 p.m. It was dispatched at 8:01 p.m.
At 8:03 p.m. the first officer arrived on the scene, and at 8:04 p.m. he
made his way alongside the tracks and got hold of her."
Apparently the girl's mother, who is a single parent with two other young
children, was giving her 6-year-old a bath, when she realized that Alex
was not in the house and that the kitchen's sliding glass door was open --
which is when she phoned police. But already, by then, another call had
come in reporting the girl walking down the tracks.
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