Medal Recipient Search
Justin S. Bax, Gardner B. Pottorff, Callaway County Sheriff’s Office and Lana M. Karhoff, North Callaway County Fire Protection District
2024 Class
Awarded on: 09/23/2025
Medal of Valor
At about 3:35 a.m. on Oct. 14, 2024, Callaway County Sheriff’s Deputy Pottorff initiated a traffic stop on Interstate 70 at mile marker 139 and found that the driver was wanted for multiple felony warrants. Corporal Bax arrived to assist Deputy Pottorff. The driver refused commands to roll down his window and Deputy Pottorff broke the driver side window. After repeated commands, the driver refused to leave the vehicle and moved his hands in a threatening manner. Deputy Pottorff deployed a Taser, but after being tased, the driver reached down, pulled a pistol and shot Pottorff and Bax multiple times. Both Pottorff and Bax returned fire, striking the gunman multiple times. Additional deputies arrived at the scene and covered the gunman, who continued to wave his arms and stick his feet out a window. North Callaway Fire Protection District Chief Karhoff determined that because of the deputies’ medical needs, she and the district’s volunteers would respond to the active shooting scene instead of staging and waiting. After communicating with the sheriff’s office, they advanced to the scene and provided immediate medical care. Once Corporal Bax’s bleeding was controlled with a tourniquet, Chief Karhoff decided to transport him directly to a hospital in her vehicle, instead of waiting for an ambulance to arrive at the scene. He was loaded into her vehicle, and she drove him directly to the hospital, as others from the district continued to treat Deputy Pottorf. Corporal Bax returned to full duty in January, Deputy Pottorff endured a longer recovery, which included surgeries, medical complications, and months of rehabilitation. He returned to duty in May. The gunman died at the scene. When coming under attack at close range in the middle of the night, Bax and Pottorff, despite each being shot multiple times, returned fire and ended the threat posed to each other and the community. Chief Karhoff and her fire protection district team responded to a potentially dangerous shooting scene, and she personally transported a wounded deputy to immediate hospital care. She retired from the district this year. Justin Bax has been promoted to sergeant. Gardner Pottorff has been promoted to corporal.
Tiffany Trenary and Levi Fare, Missouri Department of Corrections
2024 Class
Awarded on: 09/23/2025
Medal of Valor
On the evening of Oct. 26, 2024 at the Potosi Correctional Center, Officers Fare and Trenary were securing B-wing of Housing Until 6, when an offender refused Officer Trenary’s directive to return to his cell. Officer Trenary then instructed the offender to submit to wrist restraints. He refused and struck Officer Trenary in the face multiple times. To protect Officer Trenary and without regard for his own safety, Officer Fare stepped in to assist and was also struck by the offender, who then began stabbing Officer Trenary in the head and face with a prison made weapon. Without regard for his own safety, Officer Fare put himself between Officer Trenary and the offender and was also stabbed in the head. Despite their injuries, the officers pursued the offender as he ran away and were able to capture and restrain him until other corrections officers arrived. Officers Trenary and Fare were both transported to a hospital where they received stitches and wound care. While under violent attack from an armed offender, each of the officers acted with professionalism, courage and concern for the other. Officer Fare has left the Department of Corrections in good standing.
Tyler Griffin, Crystal City Police Department
2024 Class
Awarded on: 09/23/2025
Medal of Valor
On Dec. 8, 2024, Officer Griffin was dispatched to the neighboring town of Festus, where a gunman wearing body armor and armed with two handguns was firing one of the weapons near a fast food restaurant. He had already murdered his girlfriend in Arkansas, and her body was inside his pickup truck. While rushing to the scene, Officer Griffin received information that the gunman had fled police and crashed his truck in Crystal City. One of the first Crystal City Police officers on the scene exchanged shots with the gunman, who was forced to the ground and dropped his weapons. Once at the scene, Griffin took a close tactical position and gave verbal commands to the gunman, who had regained control of his weapons. Because the gunman posed an unmistakable deadly threat to the community, Officer Griffin shot him several times with his department-issued rifle. The Arkansas man, who had no ties to the community, survived and faces a murder charge in Arkansas. In a chaotic, dynamic and highly dangerous situation, Officer Griffin was calm and steadfast, focused on ending the threat and protecting the community.
Sean Miskovic and Lucas Roethlisberger, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department
2023 Class
Awarded on: 09/12/2024
Medal of Valor
On the night of February 2, 2023, Officers Miskovic and Roethlisberger were on patrol in a marked vehicle in the Soulard neighborhood when they spotted a pickup truck with no license plates. It matched the description of a vehicle wanted in connection with a robbery two days earlier. The officers radioed their location as they began following the vehicle and waiting for an assist from other officers. Once notified another patrol vehicle was in the area, Officers Miskovic and Roethlisberger activated their lights and siren. The suspect vehicle then led the officers through the Soulard neighborhood and crashed into a courtyard; its airbags deployed. As Officer Miskovic approached the suspect vehicle, the driver exited with a handgun and began firing at Officers Miskovic and Roethlisberger. Officer Miskovic took cover behind a tree and fired a round from his handgun, which then jammed. As Officer Miskovic attempted to clear his gun, Officer Roethlisberger fired at the suspect and took cover. Officer Miskovic, with a new magazine, fired another round but his gun jammed again. When the gunman took off on foot, both Miskovic and Roethlisberger pursued him despite having been shot. The suspect had been struck by a bullet in his right leg. The suspect discarded his gun as he ran, and Officer Roethlisberger captured him. Arriving officers drove Miskovic to Barnes Hospital and Roethlisberger to St. Louis University Hospital. Roethlisberger was treated for a gunshot wound to his right torso and released. He insisted on being transported to Barnes Hospital to be by the side of his partner, Officer Miskovic, who was being treated for gunshot wounds to his right torso and right arm. Officer Miskovic was treated and released the following day. The gunman was a convicted felon, in possession of a large quantity of suspected narcotics in the stolen vehicle. In addition to being shot, the officers’ police vehicle was struck by at least 13 rounds. Under heavy fire, and despite both being wounded, Officers Miskovic and Roethlisberger acted with tremendous bravery, removing a dangerous felon from the streets of St. Louis. Sean Miskovic is now an officer with the Olivette Police Department.
Jacob Peck, Shaun Goodwin and Dakota Harrington, Sikeston Department of Public Safety
2023 Class
Awarded on: 09/12/2024
Medal of Valor
Just before 1 a.m. on February 6, 2023, Officers Peck, Harrington and Goodwin responded to a residential area for reports of a person shot and began canvassing the area for a suspect. They then received information that the suspect was believed to be close to a pool in a nearby apartment complex. The three officers resumed their search in that area and located a juvenile outside the suspect’s apartment. The girl told the officers the suspect had entered the apartment armed with a pistol a few moments earlier and said he intended to kill himself. She said her 12-year-old brother was still inside the apartment. The officers then heard a single gunshot from inside the apartment. Fearing for the safety of the child and without regard of their own safety, Officers Peck, Goodwin and Harrington immediately ran to the apartment door, forced it open and located the 12-year-old lying in bed near the door. As the officers began getting the child up to remove him from the apartment, the suspect opened fire from a bedroom, firing about half a dozen shots at the officers. Despite being under fire, the officers managed to get the child out of the apartment and to safety. The Sikeston department’s tactical team and negotiators later arrested the gunman without further incident. When the life of an innocent child was at risk, Officers Peck, Goodwin and Harrington, acted without hesitation to protect the child, despite the danger a suicidal gunman posed to themselves. Jacob Peck was promoted to Sergeant in May 2023.
Jeffrey Clouse, Ferguson Police Department
2023 Class
Awarded on: 09/12/2024
Medal of Valor
On March 17, 2023, Officer Clouse responded to a call for a person in crisis at Ferguson’s January Wabash Park. The man was naked and suffering from a mental episode and ran into the park’s lake and appeared to be attempting to drown himself in the frigid water. Without hesitation, Officer Clouse removed his duty belt, emptied his pockets, and jumped into the lake. Once Officer Clouse reached him, the man kicked and shoved Clouse away. However, Officer Clouse overcame the resistance and managed to subdue the man and then safely bring him back to the edge of the lake and lift him so that assisting officers could pull him out of the water. When a man was experiencing a mental health crisis and endangering his own life, Officer Clouse acted with swift determination and successfully rescued the man, despite his efforts to thwart the rescue effort.
Channing Cochran and David Ostendorf, Independence Police Department
2023 Class
Awarded on: 09/12/2024
Medal of Valor
On April 17, 2023, Officers Cochran and Ostendorf were dispatched to a traffic crash with injuries at U.S. Highway 40 and 47th Street in Independence. Upon arrival, one of the vehicles was on fire with a passenger trapped inside. The driver had been able to exit the vehicle with a two-month-old child. But the other passenger had a serious leg injury that prevented him from getting out, and he was slipping in and out of consciousness. Officers Cochran and Ostendorf fought through intense heat and smoke as they worked to free the victim and the fire encroached the passenger compartment. They were able to pull the victim out of the vehicle and drag him to safety only seconds before the fire intensified and reached the interior of the vehicle. With time running short and an injured man trapped inside a burning vehicle, Officers Cochran and Ostendorf acted swiftly and with single-minded determination saved the victim’s life.
Travis Sanders, Greene County Sheriff’s Office
2023 Class
Awarded on: 09/12/2024
Medal of Valor
At about 10 a.m. on April 23, 2023, Corporal Sanders responded to an isolated rural area in Greene County after a man wearing an ankle monitor left a suicide note for his family and made suicidal statement. He said he intended to kill himself rather than go back to prison. The subject was tracked to his location through the ankle monitor. Corporal Sanders located the subject as he appeared to be drowning in Pickerel Creek close to its confluence with Big Sac River. He was in three-to-four feet of water, bent forward into floating brush with his head in the water. He was sucking in water as he breathed, gasping and vomiting. From the creek bank, Corporal Sanders attempted to keep the subject’s head out of the water without success. Corporal Sanders removed his duty belt, entered the chilly water and pulled the subject to the bank, where a civilian helped pull him out of the water. Fire and EMS radios did not work in the isolated area and the ambulance could not traverse woods and fields to the creek. For this reason, a helicopter was requested. To get the patient to the helicopter’s landing area required Corporal Sanders and another officer to secure the patient to a stretcher and carry him across the creek and up a steep embankment. The patient was transported to a hospital and received life-saving treatment. With a man’s life in grave risk, Corporal Sanders thought creatively and acted decisively, overcoming many obstacles in the process of helping save the man’s life.
Alfred Allmon Jr., Nicholas Jones, William Stevenson, St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department
2023 Class
Awarded on: 09/12/2024
Medal of Valor
On the afternoon of April 28, 2023, Officers Jones and Stevenson responded to an apartment building in the Skinker DeBaliviere neighborhood, where relatives requested assistance with a man in mental health crisis. At the apartment, they located the subject on a bathroom floor. EMS was called and responded. Officers Jones and Stevenson and a crisis response unit clinician attempted to talk with the man. Jones and Stevenson then attempted to lift the man from the floor, when he pulled a concealed pistol and fired two shots, striking Officer Stevenson in the right shoulder. The porcelain toilet was broken into several sharp pieces during the violent struggle as the officers worked to get the gun away from the subject, bring him under control, and protect their fellow officers. Officer Jones received a head injury in the struggle, and Officer Allmon, who had responded to an Officers in need of aid call, suffered a large laceration to his left arm. Officers Stevenson and Allmon were transported to Barnes Hospital. Officer Stevenson was treated for four puncture wounds to his right shoulder and released. Officer Allmon received stitches for the laceration to his arm. Officer Jones refused treatment at the scene. The gunman was treated for a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his right hand and underwent a psychiatric evaluation. Despite being injured, the three officers worked together to control a violent gunman and never fired a shot despite the danger he posed.
Chris Coleman, Franklin County Sheriff’s Office
2023 Class
Awarded on: 09/12/2024
Medal of Valor
On May 21, 2023, Deputy Sheriff Chris Coleman responded to a motor vehicle crash on Highway T near the intersection with Fiddle Creek Road. There were downed power lines, so Deputy Coleman closed Highway T. While directing traffic be saw that an Ameren Missouri truck had arrived; shortly after, he noticed smoke coming from the truck. He grabbed a fire extinguisher from his patrol vehicle and as he headed to the Ameren truck, he saw that the lineman was in contact with the truck, which was in contact with a live wire. Deputy Coleman extinguished the flames and, risking his safety to protect the lineman, grabbed the man by his pants leg and pulled him away from the electrified truck. The lineman was suffering from life-threatening injuries. Deputy Coleman called for medical assistance, warning that the truck posed a grave danger. EMS arrived and rendered aid to the worker. Deputy Coleman observed the truck was again igniting and extinguished the flames as the medical team cared for the lineman just a few feet away from the truck. The victim was transported by helicopter to a hospital and survived his injuries. Deputy Coleman had alertly responded to a dynamic scene and his quick thinking helped save the lineman’s life.