Ten Suffolk Police and Suffolk Fire & Rescue personnel were recognized for their service to the community at the annual Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce Valor Awards on April 22.

The Valor Awards offer the Hampton Roads business community an opportunity to thank and recognize public safety heroes for extraordinary acts of courage and resourcefulness in the line of duty.

Suffolk Police Department Sgt. Timothy Cooper, Detective Casey Thomas and Detective Alex Johnson were honored with the Investigative Merit Award. These detectives worked more than 100 hours to bring closure for a victim and his family in a brutal homicide.

They started with only a body in the water that had been there for nearly two months and worked diligently until they made three arrests. On March 9, 2015, Suffolk Police recovered a body floating in the water nearly Lakeview Parkway. An autopsy revealed the subject had received blunt force trauma to the head and had water in his lungs.

Thomas and Johnson were assigned this as their first homicide case. Working under the leadership of Cooper, they identified one suspect who had fled to Wisconsin and located another suspect in Suffolk. That suspect confirmed that one of the other people involved had fled to Wisconsin and that there was a third person involved. Detectives Thomas and Johnson were able to track down the third suspect.

Suffolk Police Department Detective Matthew Faubion, Detective Heather Linville, Detective Joyce Williams and Intel Analyst Amanda Lopez also received an Investigative Merit Award. This team’s dedicated, hard work led to the apprehension of an internet child predator and the safe return of a Suffolk teen. On Aug. 17, 2015, a 14-year-old girl was reported missing by her mother. She left a note saying she was OK and loved her family. Instead of shuffling this to a back burner as a cold runaway case, Faubion, Linville, Williams and Lopez spent hours scouring neighborhood computers, cell phone records, talking with family and friends and following up on tips to produce a lead in the case. Finally, on Sept. 23, the girl called her mother. Lopez traced the call to a residence in Superior, Wis. The Suffolk investigators quickly learned Superior Police were investigating a man at that address for a juvenile missing under similar circumstances. The suspect convinced both girls he was a modeling scout and was able to get them to go home with him. Suffolk Investigators’ information gave the Superior Police the edge they needed to obtain a search warrant and search the home. It was during that search that the girl from Suffolk was located. The suspect was arrested and charged with sexual assault and statutory rape in Wisconsin, with additional charges pending. This investigation is being adopted by the FBI Crimes Against Children Task Force and charges from additional victims are forthcoming.

Two members of the Suffolk Fire & Rescue Department, Lt. Jeremy Gould and Senior Firefighter John M. Piver, received the Lifesaving Award. On March 30, 2015, Lieutenant Jeremy Gould and Senior Firefighter John Piver rescued a woman attempting to take her life by wading out into the James River. The woman was holding on to a bridge piling about 150 yards away from the shoreline. The water was around 45 degrees. She appeared to be chest high in the water and was not responding to anyone calling from the bridge. Lieutenant Gould and Firefighter Piver received the go ahead to rescue her immediately, as waiting for cold suits or more crews would be too late. They tied off to a tag line and waded out into the frigid water to retrieve the woman. They brought her back to the shoreline where she was placed in a stokes basket and hoisted to the waiting ambulance. They both acted without due regard to their own safety and put this woman’s life first.

Suffolk Fire & Rescue Lt. Taz Lancaster also received a Lifesaving Award. In August 2015, he was off duty surfing in Buxton, N.C. He was paddling in to shore when he noticed a surfboard floating and, upon scanning the immediate area, saw a man bobbing with only his head showing barely above the water. The man told Lancaster he had fallen off his board head first into a shallow sand bar and felt as if he were paralyzed. Without hesitation and with the possibility of a c-spine injury, Lancaster used his surfboard as a backboard to stabilize the man as best he could while floating him back to shore through the rough breaking waves. Once on shore, Lancaster called 911, further immobilized the victim’s neck and reassured the man until rescue arrived and flew the man out. Lancaster tracked the man’s progress and, fortunately, he only had temporary paralysis due to the compression sustained to his c-spine and ended up making a full recovery. Had Lancaster not quickly assessed the situation and took the appropriate action when he did, the man could have sustained permanent paralysis from the waves slamming him around or could have drowned in the rough surf.