VALLEY PATRIOT EDITORIAL
Real
Heroes in the Valley truly deserve our
support
Last
month the Exchange Club of Lawrence
honored police officers, firefighters and
an EMT workers for their service to the
communities of Lawrence, Andover, and
North Andover.
Among those honored were Lawrence Police
Officer Michael Magnan who received one
of the Exchange Clubs Police
Officer of the Year Awards for
saving the lives of Lawrence residents on
three separate occasions.
On one occasion, Officer Magnan entered a
Lawrence apartment, responding to a
domestic dispute only to find himself
face to face with a man holding a sword.
Though Magnan and other officers
commanded the man to drop the weapon he
advanced on Officer Magnan making
threatening gestures. Magnan did not fire
his weapon; instead he used his training
and expertise to talk the crazed man into
surrendering without anyone being harmed.
In another incident, Magnan and Officer
Goujon witnessed an armed man trying to
stab a Patriot Ambulance EMT. Both
officers jump into the fracas and subdued
the assailant without anyone getting
hurt. In yet a third incident, Magnan
responded to a call in December where he
had to kick in the door of a man holding
a knife to the stomach of woman who was
nine months pregnant. Magnan was able to
defuse the situation by talking to the
man and convincing him to drop the weapon
without hurting the pregnant woman or her
unborn baby.
Also honored by the Exchange Club last
month were;
Police Officers of the Year
North Andover Police Officers:
Katherine Knab, Joe Kamal, Sgt. Charles
Gray, K9 Officer Kyzer,
Inspector Dan Cronin, Mark Wilson, Dan
Quinlan and Special Agent Todd Prough
(DEA), Andover Police Officer Brian
Blouin,
Firefighters
of the Year
Lawrence Firefighters; Lt. Erik Zahn,
Lt. Tara Reardon and Firefighter Rodney
Rivera. North Andover Firefighter Daniel
Ryan. Andover Firefighters: Deputy Chief
DelDotto, Lt. Mark Conlon, Todd
Richardson, Eric Tiechert, Lt. George
Milne, Joe Cahill, John Mullen, Thomas
Agnew, Cliff Pattullo, Kyle Murphy, Scott
Weightman, Jeffrey Condon ad Brian
Landry.
These brave men and women, as well as
their colleagues in the field of public
safety, deserve the support, respect, and
thanks from the people of the Merrimack
Valley.
And while many of our citizens do
understand the sacrifices these men and
women make and the dangers they face
every day, sadly, there are others who
shamefully attack them in the press or
grandstand at public meetings advocating
public hostility towards those who would
so willingly give their lives for every
single one of them.
We at the Valley Patriot are proud of the
good men and women who serve as police,
firefighters and EMTs across the Valley.
We also want to thank the wonderful men
and women of the Lawrence Exchange Club
for honoring them and calling the publics
attention to their bravery and heroism.
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All pictures and
material are
(C) copyright, Valley Patriot, Inc., 2008
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