USA — Pentagon Police Officers Honored for Stopping Gunman

WASHINGTON — Two Pen­ta­gon Force Pro­tec­tion Agency offi­cers cred­it­ed with stop­ping a gun­man at a Pen­ta­gon entrance March 4 were rec­og­nized in the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes yes­ter­day.

Offi­cers Mar­vin Car­raway and Jef­fery Amos each received the Har­ry E. Neal Award from the Asso­ci­a­tion of For­mer Agents of the U.S. Secret Service. 

“It’s def­i­nite­ly an hon­or, and I feel very hum­bled,” Car­raway said. “When­ev­er I put on this uni­form and this badge, I feel a great deal of pride. I wear it with a lot of dig­ni­ty and honor.” 

“I feel that I was only doing my job dur­ing the inci­dent that took place,” Amos said. “At the same time, it could have gone dif­fer­ent­ly, and I’m kind of glad it turned out how it did.” 

On the day of the shoot­ing, John Patrick Bedell approached the Pen­ta­gon from the Metro sub­way sta­tion entrance, pulled out a 9 mm pis­tol and opened fire on offi­cers at a secu­ri­ty check­point. Car­raway and Amos returned fire and fatal­ly wound­ed the shoot­er. Both offi­cers suf­fered super­fi­cial wounds, but con­tin­ued to engage Bedell. 

“We look for news­wor­thy acts of hero­ism in law enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ties through­out the Unit­ed States to hon­or,” said AFAUSSS Pres­i­dent Ike Hen­der­shot. “The offen­sive action that they took that day to pro­tect the com­mu­ni­ty and the Pen­ta­gon pushed them to the top of our list. It just makes my heart so glad that we have these types of heroes in Amer­i­ca today.” 

Named for for­mer assis­tant chief of the Secret Ser­vice Har­ry E. Neal, the award hon­ors police offi­cers who’ve per­formed out­stand­ing ser­vices in the form of acts of hero­ism or extra­or­di­nary investigations. 

The pre­vi­ous recip­i­ents of the Har­ry E. Neal Award were the two offi­cers who end­ed the shoot­ing at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov. 5. 

The award is a part of the AFAUSSS Foun­da­tion, which col­lec­tive­ly has donat­ed more than $1 mil­lion in finan­cial sup­port to fam­i­lies of deceased law enforce­ment offi­cers and to schol­ar­ship programs. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)