10 Officers Honored With Medal of Valor for Heroism Under Fire

The man was armed with two assault rifles and more than 400 rounds of ammunition. He was mentally unstable and trained in urban warfare tactics. He came gunning for Los Angeles Police Department Officer Romik Keshishi in an underground garage only six weeks after Keshishi graduated from the academy.

“I can still see his eyes,” Keshishi said Wednesday after receiving the LAPD’s Medal of Valor. “It was scary. You think, ‘Oh, my God, this guy’s trying to kill me.’ They tell you the job has risks--you might even lose your life--but it’s not a reality until it happens.”

Ten men and women were awarded medals at a ceremony attended by Mayor Richard Riordan, Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and other dignitaries. It was a chance for the LAPD to shine some glory on its own at a time when the expanding Rampart scandal has exposed the uglier sides of police conduct.

Speakers described acts of extreme courage and bravery in incredible circumstances in honoring officers who risked their lives to protect the public and other officers. Keshishi and two other recipients--Officer Cynthia French and Sgt. Joan Leuck--were involved in a frenetic eight-minute shootout with the heavily armed suspect at a Studio City apartment complex, which ended when the gunman was killed.

The incident, on New Year’s Eve 1998, nearly resulted in French being killed. She was shot in the left side of her chest after the gunman tried to flee his apartment. The shrapnel penetrated her spleen, liver and left lung. French had her spleen and the lower portion of her lung removed. She was in the hospital a month.

“We had exchanged gunfire; the next thing I knew I was face-down on the floor,” she said. “It was very chaotic and confusing--the most scared I’ve ever been in my entire life.”

She got up, fled and collapsed as she started to go into shock. Other officers hoisted her over a fence to safety. Keshishi and Leuck later shot the gunman.

The seven remaining medal winners were involved in three other bloody shootouts. Officer Manuel Solis was wounded during a gun battle in early 1998 but still managed to help Officer Lazaro Ramirez rescue a more seriously wounded colleague, even while a gunman aimed an assault rifle at them through a window. Ramirez, who fired 15 rounds into a window to gain time for the rescue, also was awarded a medal.

Officers Ronald Chavarria and Robert Farias, who responded to a rowdy gang party on New Year’s Eve 1997, ended up risking their lives to aid a downed colleague who had been shot several times. The gun battle ended when the suspect was shot in the head and killed.

Three officers--Francisco Dominguez, Peter McCoy and Jason Thompson--managed to subdue a man with an assault rifle who sprayed a police car in November 1998. One officer was critically injured in the attack. He was saved when the officers were able to force the gunman’s surrender.

The medals, awarded over the last 40 years for outstanding police work, were presented downtown during a luncheon at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel. Leuck, who was praised for her calm during the Studio City siege, nonetheless said she will never get over it.

“It never leaves you,” she said. “You’re never the same.”