Bulletin Notes
Law enforcement officers are challenged daily in the performance of their duties; they face each encounter freely and unselfishly while answering the call to duty. In certain instances, their actions warrant special attention from their respective departments. The Bulletin also wants to recognize those situations that transcend the normal rigors of the law enforcement profession.
Early one afternoon, Officers Joshua Roberts and Timothy Knight of the Eden, North Carolina, Police Department responded to a report of a 3-year-old child who accidently fell into a river and was floating without a life vest. Immediately, the officers searched the banks and water to find the toddler. They located him approximately 75 yards downriver, face down and drifting with the swift current.
Officers Roberts and Knight traversed the steep riverbank and entered the water — 3 feet higher than normal due to recent heavy rain — in full police gear. Fighting the current, Officer Roberts reached the child and grabbed him by his shirt, lifting the boy’s lifeless body out of the water as he himself was going under. Officer Roberts turned back and swam close enough to pass the toddler to Officer Knight, who was also struggling to keep his head above water.
Officer Joshua Roberts
Officer Timothy Knight
The two officers reached the riverbank, where they handed the boy off to another officer at the river’s edge. Lifesaving measures were immediately initiated by police and firemen as Officers Roberts and Knight coughed up the water they themselves had swallowed.
As the officers continued struggling to catch their own breath, Officer Roberts, realizing the ambulance and emergency medical personnel could not reach the toddler’s location, took the boy and sprinted toward the ambulance, parked about 150 yards away up a steep grade. While running with the child in his arms and completely exhausted, Officer Roberts’ legs gave out and he fell to the ground. Without hesitation, Officer Knight grabbed the toddler from Officer Roberts’ arms and continued running to the ambulance, giving the boy to medical personnel who immediately began CPR.
The toddler was transported to a local hospital and delivered to hospital staff for treatment 15 minutes and 12 seconds from the initial 911 call.
Nominations for the Bulletin Notes should be based on either the rescue of one or more citizens or an arrest(s) made at unusual risk to an officer’s safety. Submissions should include a short write-up, a separate photograph of each nominee, and a letter from the department’s ranking officer endorsing the nomination. Submissions can be emailed to leb@fbi.gov.