Medal of Valor awarded to 3 L.A. County sheriff’s deputies

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca awarded his department’s highest honor Wednesday to the deputy who stopped a knife-wielding woman in a slashing rampage at a West Hollywood Target store earlier this year.

Deputy Clay Grant Jr. was shopping for paper towels on his day off in May when he came upon the bloody scene. The woman ignored his initial demands to drop her two knives — dashing across the store’s aisles. Grant was praised for not firing his Beretta service weapon, eventually convincing the mentally ill woman to disarm with his words.

Grant, 26, was awarded the Medal of Valor along with two other deputies, Freddy Brown and Clipper Hackett. About two dozen others also were honored in front of family, friends and much of the department’s top brass.

Grant’s father, along with his captain at the Men’s Central Jail where he works, joined him. Grant smiled widely as Baca slipped the medal around his neck in front of a sea of khaki and gold at the Montebello banquet hall.

Clay Grant Sr., 51, said his son began honing his judgment under pressure as the quarterback for Fairfax High School’s football team.

“He was asked to make decisions, and be in control,” he said. “Be in control of his surroundings.”

The deputy was roaming the aisles at the store when he heard screams. A woman wielding two knives had allegedly stabbed four shoppers — including one who was holding a baby — in an apparently random attack.

After the incident, Grant said he recalled his training during the tense moment and opted not to shoot because from 20 feet away the woman no longer was a danger to him or others.

Hackett, one of the three Medal of Valor winners, helped an injured deputy retreat to safety amid shotgun fire. Brown, the third honoree, came onto the scene of a gunfire rampage in Hawaiian Gardens, where he was able to shoot and take down a suspect who pointed an assault rifle at him.

Brown was awarded a silver meritorious conduct medal for another incident as well — a double recognition that was described as “extremely rare” by one Sheriff’s Department official.

Sgt. Dana Camarillo, who also was recognized, arrived on the scene after Brown took the suspect down. She and others entered the residence to rescue any potential victims. They found two dead, and two others critically injured, one of whom later died. Several others in the family had escaped the alleged shooter, an ex-boyfriend of one of the people killed, by climbing out of a second-story window.

Camarillo said she was honored by the award, but still affected by the horrific scene she came upon.

“To see them suffering the way they were,” she said, “is a memory that sticks with you.”

Baca called the deputies “heroes” and credited them with creating harmony between the department and the county’s many ethnic groups. He lamented that more of their stories could not be publicized by the media.

“There’s so much good that there’s not enough time and space to report on it,” the sheriff said.

robert.faturechi@latimes.com