2 officers awarded for saving man's life during confrontation


10 photos
Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

PRICE — April 1 is normally a day for jokes and pranks. However, at the Price police department this past April 1, no one was laughing at all.

"It was a little scary," said officer David Wilkinson.

He and fellow officer Stephen Regruto were called to a house in the 500 South 100 East area of Price when they noticed the man they were looking for.

However, that man didn't want to see them.

"As he turned and ran into the garage, I recognized the weapon was there," said Wilkinson. "It was a shotgun and it was lying in a way that it was easily accessible to him."

Both officers chased the man into the garage.

"Scared? I guess it didn't really cross my mind at the time," Regruto said. "We reacted the way I think almost anybody would have reacted under those circumstances."

The man grabbed the shotgun but he didn't point it at officers like they thought he might.

Instead, the man pointed the shotgun at his own chin. That's when the two officers caught up to him, tackled him and pinned him to the ground.

"(We) just tried to hold him down and keep that shotgun pointed in a safe direction." Regruto said. "He didn't yell at us, didn't tell us to back off or anything like that ... He just kind of laid there, I guess."

The whole thing lasted just a couple of minutes.

"I believe he was in a tough place," Wilkinson said. "He had a lot going on in his life, and sometimes people just find there is no end, there's no out. And I believe he reached that point in his life that day."

Both officers were awarded Medals of Distinguished Service from Price City for saving the man's life.

The man, Victor Herrera, had been going through relationship issues, mental issues and wasn't employed at the time of the incident.

"He wasn't looking to harm officer Regruto or myself," Wilkinson said. "He was just looking to harm himself."

This case is an example as to why Price Police Capt. Bill Barnes said crisis intervention training is as important as ever.


We have an extreme emphasis on training, and our crews train at least one day a month. As a department, we're focusing on the crisis intervention, recognizing a time of crisis in an individual's life and an upset in their regular course of things.

–Capt. Bill Barnes


"We have an extreme emphasis on training, and our crews train at least one day a month," Barnes said. "As a department, we're focusing on the crisis intervention, recognizing a time of crisis in an individual's life and an upset in their regular course of things."

Barnes said the Price community is a hard-working, blue-collar town where many residents work in the coal mines. It's an area that is still doing its best to recover from the economic collapse and many people are still looking for work.

Barnes said he feels when his officers deal with those people, it's important to recognize there may be other factors involved.

"You know, we have plenty of the cops and robbers type stuff to deal with. We have plenty to keep us busy," he said. "But we also want to be servants to the community. We work for them, and I think that crisis intervention training was critical in this situation."

After the incident, Herrera thanked the officers for saving his life.

"To me, it means we did something good. We did something right," Regruto said.

KSL reached out to Herrera for comment on this story. Through his sister, he said he doesn't want to talk about it anymore and has moved to another state to try and start a new life.

"We wish him the best and hope he's doing well," Wilkinson said. "This certainly could have ended terribly."

Photos

Related stories

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

Utah
Alex Cabrero

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast