Mesa forced to keep hero officers' names secret

Apr. 22—Three Mesa police officers were honored this month with lifesaving medals for helping to save a woman stabbed by her son multiple times at their Mesa home.

During the November incident, the three officers secured the suspect while simultaneously treating the woman, who had so much blood covering her neck and torso that it was difficult to find the wounds, according to a police memo.

The officers treated the wounds and comforted the woman until Mesa Fire and Medical arrived.

A superior officer wrote up a nomination and submitted it to the department's Meritorious Conduct Board. The board agreed with the nominator's finding of "quick thinking" and "exceptional skills."

The names of the three male officers are unknown — as are the names of numerous recipients of other commendations — in part because the quarterly awards ceremonies for promotions and honors like the Lifesaving Medal are not open to the public and media are not invited.

Assistant Chief Ed Wessing said the number of medals given at the events — held at the Public Safety Training Facility in northwest Mesa — varies each quarter; sometimes two or three awards are given, sometimes none.

There are medals of distinction, excellence and honor. Civilians are also given awards for exceptional valor or good deeds.

"They don't seek this type of recognition, but when they get it, it's meaningful," Wessing said of police.

The names of officers and acts of heroism are typically not released, Wessing said, because officers are increasingly wary of their names and images being out in the media.

A small ribbon on an officer's uniform might be the only public testament to their having saved a life or exercised good judgment under pressure.

The Tribune reviewed a copy of the nomination memo for the latest Lifesaving Medals with the three officer names redacted.

In the incident that resulted in the awards, dispatchers received a call from a woman saying her son was going to kill her.

While officers were en route to what was coded a domestic disturbance, dispatchers received a second call from a man, who reported seeing his neighbor stabbing his mom.

"Please help, please help," the frantic caller said on the 911 recording, which was included in an audio montage played during the award ceremony.

Dispatchers upgraded the call to "hot."

As officers arrived on scene, they saw a woman hunched over her knees face down on the front patio, the nominating memo states.

As officers went to check on the woman, her son walked out the front door with hands covered in blood.

Police moved to detain the son, and simultaneously, the mother rolled on her back, revealing stab wounds in her upper torso and neck area.

The woman couldn't speak as she struggled to breathe with punctured lungs.

Some officers moved her to a safer location while others secured the suspect and the rest of the home. Those with the woman applied pressure to her wounds before covering them with compression seals.

The officers "did a great job of comforting the victim and treating her for her injuries during a hectic and chaotic initial scene," the award nomination states.

After Mesa Fire and Medical arrived, the woman was transported to Banner Desert Hospital and went immediately into surgery. She had lost enormous amounts of blood, but doctors stabilized her, and she survived.

"If it was not for the quick thinking and efforts of these officers and detective, this victim may have succumbed to her injuries," the award documents state.

Wessing said the department wants to share stories of good performance like these, but it is cautious about respecting privacy — even when it involves undisputed good deeds.

The department won't release awardees' names without their permission.

Oversharing the identities of award recipients might have a "chilling effect" on the issuing of honors, he said.

The department wants to encourage supervisors to nominate officers and have the awardees accept them at large, well-attended events with family and colleagues.

"We really keep our families somewhat in a bubble about the hazards and the dangers of our jobs," Wessing said.

Awards ceremonies are "an opportunity to kind of let them in. I always walked away grateful for the opportunity to let my family see a little bit about what we do," he said.

Wessing said the extra spotlight of media presence could spoil that, because many officers would forgo the honors.

Why?

According to Wessing, police have always been sensitive to privacy and protective of family, but he thinks the impulse has grown in recent years since the advent of social media and the social unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

He said threats to individual police officers have become more common.

"Doxxing" — the practice of sharing sensitive info like home addresses online — is also a problem. Online personas have issued calls for followers to meet up at an officer's house.

Wessing mentioned an innocuous Facebook post on wellness that had to be taken down recently due to "some really unfortunate threatening comments."

Occasionally, threats have gone beyond Facebook.

"We have had concerns where people have been in individual officers' neighborhoods — where they've taken pictures of homes and it gets posted (online)," Wessing said.

A recent example of online hostility verging on a threat can be found on the department's Facebook page.

On a post expressing condolences for a Tucson Police officer who died in the line of duty last month, a commenter wished it was a specific Mesa police officer.

"Let us know when — meets his (end of watch) so we can celebrate," the post stated, naming a Mesa police officer. "End of watch" is a term used to refer to a public safety death in the line of duty.

"That's what our officers deal with," Wessing said.

Wessing said there are also professional reasons for officers wanting to keep a low profile — anonymity may help an officer take on undercover assignments.

Though the desire for privacy may be justified, Wessing worries that it leads to fewer positive stories of police action in the media, resulting in a sense that the public only sees reports of misconduct or errors.

"On one hand, there's that feeling that no one reports (anything) but negative things. But on the other hand, we don't always want to be involved in sharing the positives. So it's this kind of cycle," he said.

Wessing said he's thought about how to break the cycle.

"We have to be better at marketing the good to all forms of media, but also we have to be better at marketing the benefit to our folks," he said.

"Hey, this is an opportunity to highlight the amazing work that I think the community wants to see."