2 Police Officers Awarded LAPD’s Medal of Valor

Officer David Orozco had just a few words to sum up his feelings about receiving the Los Angeles Police Department’s Medal of Valor on Wednesday.

“It’s a little too much for me,” he said, glancing around nervously at the crowds and television cameras.

Orozco and Officer Mark Mireles became the 497th and 498th officers to wear the medal recognizing bravery beyond the call of duty.

Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn praised them for “uncommon acts of courage.” Police Chief Bernard Parks called them “true role models.” And about 500 people attending the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce’s luncheon in the officers’ honor at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel downtown gave them standing ovations.

Orozco, 42, was selected to receive the award because of his actions on June 5, 2000, when he and his partner responded to a call of man on the ledge of a building. They arrived to see a man on the eighth floor of a parking garage near Wilshire Boulevard and Veteran Avenue.

The man jumped, but somehow caught his arm on a waist-high wall of the floor below, breaking his fall. The officers ran up to where the man had regained his footing on the ledge and found him still threatening to jump.

Orozco was able to grab the man’s arm, using “a death grip on his wrist and forearm,” he recalled. The man let go, and his weight yanked Orozco over the wall with him, but the officer’s gun belt caught, halting their slide. Orozco felt himself hanging, staring at the sidewalk below. The man struggled, but he held on. Orozco’s partner and an unidentified bystander pulled them to safety.

Mireles, 34, was cited for his actions upon coming across a car accident on his way home from work Feb. 16, 2000. It was raining, and Mireles saw a blue electrical arc lighting up the sky near Riverside Drive and Glendale Avenue, he said. His headlights then shone on a Jeep Cherokee on its side, surrounded by downed wires whipping around, sending out blue arcs.

The driver of the jeep, Ignacio Miramontes, climbed out. Mireles prevented him from rescuing his wife, saying firefighters would soon arrive. But shortly after, the downed transformer set leaking gasoline aflame, and fire erupted all around.

Mireles stepped carefully over the downed wires to rescue Carmen Miramontes, “kind of like that game when you’re a kid and you don’t step on the cracks in the sidewalk.” He pulled her out of the Jeep and carried her on his shoulders back through the obstacle course of live wires.

On Wednesday, the Miramontes family attended the award ceremony.

“I want people to see the LAPD is also here to help us,” Ignacio Miramontes said, before offering thanks to Mireles.