Officer of the Year 1989
Detective Gregory Jaglowski
Chicago Police Department, Illinois For conspicuous gallantry above and beyond the line of duty on September 22nd, 1988. Patrolman Gregory Jaglowski and his partner Patrolwoman Irma Ruiz had responded to a complaint of an unruly student in a Chicago-area school. Unknown to the officers, a crazed gunman had begun a rampage of killing in a nearby store. The gunman then shot a city sanitation worker on the street, and the school custodian who sounded the alarm and alerted the officers to the gunman’s presence near the school. As Jaglowski exited the school, he was confronted by the gunman who was heading into the school and shot Officer Jaglowski. Officer Irma Ruiz was then fatally shot in the chest by the gunman. Jaglowski, who was wounded in both legs and bleeding profusely outside the school, went to assist his partner laying inside the school when he was again confronted by the gunman. There was an exchange of gunfire. Officer Jaglowski, while trying to protect his fatally wounded comrade, and with his own serious injuries and loss of blood, was able to kill the gunman with his last round.
Officers arriving on the scene found 22 more cartridges in the gunman’s pocket and feared that if Officer Jaglowski had not taken this action, students and teachers in the school would have been victims to this deranged gunman. Patrolwoman Ruiz was posthumously awarded the American Police Hall Medal of Honor and the courage of Gregory Jaglowski sets and example of the fine tradition of public service which is a tribute to the valor of all law enforcement officers nationwide. It is on this basis that he is named as Law Enforcement officer of the Year and a Knight of Justice by the American Police Hall of Fame for the Year 1989.
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