A Virginia State Police trooper who saved an elderly woman from a burning apartment is being honored as the top cop in the nation.
Trooper Matt Cochran is named as America’s police officer of the year by Parade magazine and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
He is the first Virginia State Police trooper to receive the award. Others from the agency have earned honorable mentions.
Four Pentagon Force Protection Agency officers who responded to a gunman near a Pentagon security checkpoint in March received honorable mentions this year. Those officers are Marvin Carraway, 44; Colin Richards, 29; Dexter Jones, 46; and Jeffery Amos, 47.
Cochran and the Pentagon officers are recognized in Sunday’s issue of the magazine.
The 28-year-old trooper rescued a 72-year-old diabetic woman who became trapped in her southern Virginia apartment complex during a January fire.
When the blaze broke out, the woman opened the door to a burning, smoky hallway instead of a door to the outside, according to the Parade article, published Friday on the magazine’s Web site.
Cochran was on patrol nearby and responded to the fire.
The heat was so intense that his uniform “was starting to melt,” he told the magazine.
Cochran heard cries from the woman but it took him three tries to reach her. He finally led her from the complex as three residents’ oxygen tanks exploded, shaking the building.
The Pentagon officers responded when a California man opened fire at the Defense Department headquarters on March 4. The shooter was killed by police.
When Carraway was struck in the hip by a bullet, he knew he was hit, but kept pursuing the gunman.
“The only thing on my mind was stopping him before he got into the building,” Carraway told Parade.
