Profile in Courage : Deputy Who Defused Deadly Standoff Is Among 9 to Receive Honors

About 40 feet away from Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Jim Avant, a woman stood with her back turned, alternately pointing a gun at her head and the five other officers she was facing.

The standoff last April had already lasted about 15 minutes, Avant said, and something was about to give.

Avant crept closer toward the woman and then broke into a mad sprint. He then tackled her, holding her gun pointed away from both her and the officers.

Officers on the scene said Avant’s actions probably saved the woman’s life, and the deputy will be awarded the Sheriff’s Medal of Courage today.

Avant is representative of the nine deputies who will receive the medal in ceremonies at the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel in Costa Mesa.

But he said his actions were simply part of his job: “I was in the right place at the right time to make a difference.

“I appreciate the department taking the time to recognize the deputies who were in the position they were in,” Avant said. But, he added, “More people need to be recognized. Everybody does a good job.”

The standoff began about 8 p.m. that night when the unidentified woman, standing in front of a gas station at Crown Valley Parkway and Golden Lantern in Laguna Niguel, put the gun to her head and demanded to speak to the President Clinton, said Sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Acuna, who was one of the first officers who responded to the call.

Acuna called the woman “incoherent.” He said she was claiming that there would be a major catastrophe before morning and wanted to warn the President.

“She felt the only way to do that was to dramatize her plight,” Acuna said.

The woman kept pointing the gun at the five officers that surrounded her, Acuna said. As the standoff went on, he said, it began to appear that the woman would shoot at either the deputies or herself.

“I thought somebody was going to lose a life, and I didn’t want it to be one of the deputies,” Acuna said.

Avant, who was not in uniform at the time, was returning to the Sheriff’s Department’s Laguna Niguel substation when he learned of the incident by radio and went to help.

As the woman focused on deputies in front of her, Avant made his way around to the back of the building, he said. He began moving toward her when she brought the gun down to her side.

Acuna said that as Avant approached, he had his gun pointed directly at the woman, fearing for Avant’s safety if she turned around and saw the deputy approaching her.

“There was no way he could cover himself,” Acuna said. “If she had turned, she would have been a dead person.”

Avant said that the woman’s safety was his main concern when he arrived at the scene and that deputies were doing everything they could to keep her from getting hurt.

“Nobody got hurt, and that’s a good job,” Avant said. “You don’t put your gun on thinking, ‘I want to kill someone today.’ You want an uneventful shift.”

Acuna said that while all the deputies on the scene put themselves in jeopardy and deserve recognition, “Jim went above and beyond.”

“As a deputy sheriff, he did the job that he was supposed to do,” Acuna said. “He took it upon himself to put himself in a very precarious position.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Hailing the Heroes

Nine Orange County sheriff’s deputies are being honored today for bravery in 1994, on duty and off. A look at what each deputy did to receive department accolades:

* James Avant: April; wrested a gun from a woman who was threatening suicide and pointing the weapon at others.

* Roland Chacon and Lee Trujillo: February; arrested a 16-year-old who had a sawed-off shotgun and refused to surrender it.

* Joseph Balicki: December; pursued an armed federal fugitive and prevented him from entering nearby homes during the chase.

* Ronald Dunlap: August; disarmed and arrested a woman shooting at people in a parking lot.

* Richard Johnson: October; during a riot at Theo Lacy Branch Jail, protected a group of non-rioting prisoners by pushing away a group of combative prisoners until other deputies quelled the disturbance.

* John Stokes: March; took quick action resulting in the arrest of a gunman.

* David Tilstra: September; in making an emergency landing after losing power during a sheriff’s helicopter flight, successfully guided the craft away from buildings, traffic and people, preventing serious injury and property damage.

* Brad Warner: June; after a disturbance call involving a gunman, was able to return fire and prevent the suspect from posing a threat to a second, arriving deputy.

Source: Orange County Sheriff’s Department

Los Angeles Times