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The State : Officer’s Deed Saves Suspect

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Still wearing his shoes and his seven-pound bulletproof vest, Fresno Police Officer Patrick Farmer swam 75 yards across a pond to save a robbery suspect from drowning. Police had chased three suspects in a fast-food restaurant holdup to a ponding basin, where they abandoned a car. Two were captured quickly and Farmer heard the third, David Mendoza, 19, shout for help from the water. Farmer, who was trained in rescuing drowning people while serving in the Navy, took off his duty belt carrying his pistol and handcuffs and jumped into the water. “I didn’t have time to take off my bulletproof vest, and I left on my shoes because I didn’t know what the bottom of the pond was like,” Farmer said. “Looking back, I probably should have taken off the shoes and the vest, because they really got in the way.” Farmer said Mendoza didn’t say anything to him afterward, “but I heard him tell one of the other officers, ‘Hey, tell that cop thanks for me.’ ”

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