Officers Honored for Life-Saving Efforts, Solving Fraud Investigation
The Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of Commerce recognized public safety officers for acts of heroism at their annual Public Safety Awards breakfast on Friday.
MyMCMedia spoke to Montgomery County Police Officers Bradley Feldman and Michelle Barger about what they did to receive an honor from the community.
Feldman, Shortfall Honored for Saving Teenagers from Knife-Wielding Man in Gaithersburg
Feldman received two awards at the Public Safety Award.
He and Officer William Shortfall earned a Citation for Bravery for their response to an incident on Dec. 3, 2018 at a Wendy’s in Gaithersburg.
A man — eventually identified as Adonias Gomez — had been threatening customers inside the Wendy’s and was holding a bloody butcher’s knife.
When Feldman and Shortfall arrived at the scene, high school-aged children approached the officers and said that Gomez was chasing them with the knife.
Feldman said that Gomez didn’t comply with the officer’s orders, so Feldman used a taser on Gomez. Gomez was then taken into custody.
Feldman Saved Man From Dying of Opioid Overdose
Feldman’s second award was a Distinguished Service Citation. On Jan. 24, 2019, Feldman responded to a call about a man undergoing cardiac and respiratory arrest.
Upon arriving at the scene, Feldman realized that the man wasn’t breathing, so he used an automatic external defibrillator (AED) and started doing CPR.
One of the man’s friends who was at the scene informed Feldman that the man had a history of abusing pain medications like opioids. Hearing this information, Feldman administered a dose of Nalaxone to the man, and eventually, the man started to breathe.
Montgomery County Fire and Rescue personnel say that Feldman’s quick efforts to administer Nalaxone was essential for saving the man from dying.
Barger’s Investigation Leads to Recovery of Stolen Items
Officer Barger responded to a call about items stolen from a man’s vehicle, including credit cards and biking equipment that was worth $5,000.
Barger said that she’s received calls like this frequently while she’s on duty. Four hours after the theft was reported, the victim contacted Barger to inform her that his credit was used to make about $4,800 worth of purchases.
Barger worked relentlessly to solve this case by obtaining a subpoena for store receipts and she obtained surveillance footage of the fraudulent transactions. After watching the video, Barger noticed that the two people who were using the stolen credit card were departing from establishments in a small dark gray Audi sport utility vehicle.
Eventually, Barger was able to identify two suspects who lived in Hagerstown. She discovered that these suspects had been arrested for similar crimes in January 2018 in Pennsylvania.
Barger tracked down the suspects, obtained a search warrant to search their home, and she managed to get the two suspects to provide statements admitting to their involvement in stealing biking equipment and fraudulently using stolen credit cards. The suspects have since been arrested and almost all of the stolen property was returned to its owners.
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