By Heather Ratcliffe, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
Area police gave standing ovations and their highest honor for bravery, the Medal of Valor, to seven of their follow officers who put their lives on the line during the past year.
The event, at the Millennium Hotel in St. Louis today, included an award to fallen St. Louis police Officer Nicholas Sloan, whose family accepted the medal on his behalf.
The other recipients included Sloan’s partner, Gabriel Keithley; St. Louis police officers James Debisschop and Kurt Wagner, who confronted an armed bank robber April 17 and shot him when the gunman pointed his weapon at the officers; and three St. Louis County police officers, Eric Austermann, Jason Neuman and Christine Romo, who evacuated the residents of an apartment building through thick smoke and fire March 6.