Tuesday, Mar. 05 2013 3:38PM

POLICE

Civilian employees, officers honored by LSPD

By the Journal staff

The Lee’s Summit Police Department held its annual awards ceremony Feb. 28 to honor citizens and staff for actions that occurred in 2012.

This year marked the 19th year for the annual ceremony and a total of 102 awards were given out during the event including the awarding of the 2012 Civilian and Officer of the Year awards. Accreditation Coordinator Tanisha Artis, right, was chosen as the Civilian Employee of the Year and Detective Chad Albin was chosen as the 2012 Officer of the Year.

The ceremony began with character awards for citizens who had assisted the police department with various community service projects during 2012. In addition to the citizen awards, officers and civilian staff were honored for awards of commendation, life saving awards and various medals.

Some of the highlights from the ceremony included the presentation of four Life Saving awards to the officers who responded to a shooting call in February of 2012. During the incident, a teenage girl was accidentally shot in the head with a handgun. During the ceremony, the awards were presented to the officers by the girl who had never had a chance to meet the officers that saved her life that day.

In addition to Life Saving awards, three officers were honored with the Meritorious Service Medal for rescuing a victim and witness during a shooting and hostage standoff incident in November of 2012. Officer Brent Evans was awarded the Medal of Honor for an incident in June of 2012 where an armed suspect fired several shots at him before being taken into custody.