Jenna BRIANS knew she was leading to a violent man. She knew the danger that her distant husband posed, but she still got into her car.
At that time, she said, the instinctive fear of being injured or even killed was thrown aside by her mother instinct to save her twin daughters of 2 years.
Brians was one of the seven people announced on Monday for their bravery during the 35th Citizens of Courage Awards of the County Prosecutor’s Office of San Diego. The district prosecutor, Summer, Stephan said that the recipients were all ordinary citizens who had intervened to do extraordinary things.
“The recipients have all been called upon to save a life, to bring humanity to an absolutely horrible situation and out of their control, and somehow find the courage to do so,” said Stephan.
About 350 people during this year’s lunch listened to Stephan and the civil servants described the heroic actions of each winner.
It was on June 13, 2020, and Britans was already on the way to Imperial Beach to bring her daughters, Aubrey and Hailey, when she received an SMS from her distant husband. Robert BRIANS sent him a photo of the two girls to the headquarters before a car without car seats or seat belt, “telling me to say goodbye to my daughters because he was going to kill and my children,” she recalls.
Brians called the police and helped them locate her husband. After Britans tried to reason with her husband on the phone, begging him to save the life of girls, he led his car to sunset with the girls inside. The first speakers were able to save the twins and their father.
“Jenna deserves to be attributed for her courage, her strength and her literally unwavering love for her daughters,” said assistant prosecutor Franciesca Balerio. “She has magnificently balanced to be a mother, a victim and a critical witness, which is extremely difficult to do.”
Brians described the test as “terrifying, horrible”.
“I consider myself a lucky mother who can watch her daughters grow up,” she said.
Robert BRIANS pleaded guilty to two leaders of attempted murder, with two kidnapping chiefs, as well as a chief of abuse of children, burglaries and domestic violence. He was sentenced to 31 years in state prison.
A group of good Samaritans – Loay Yousif, Francisco Sesma, Hunter Nemeth and James Carver – were also recognized for their heroism on April 27, 2022, when they owned a shooter who shot the motorway officer in California Antonio Pacheco. The four men stopped separately to help when they saw blood on the ground next to the vehicle of an officer and a crushed car on the Interstate 8 in the direction is near the upper passage of the interstate 805 around 6:15 p.m.
After seeing the injured officer, Yousf entered action and caught the man he suspected of being the shooter. A few seconds later, Sesma ran with a knife and helped Yousf maintain the suspect.
Meanwhile, Carver and Nemeth, a nurse on the way back of the work, helped the officer, in the fashion of a tourniquet to stop bleeding.
The investigators then determined that Pacheco had stopped to help the shooter – who had deliberately crushed his car – when the suspect reached the officer’s pistol and pulled a turn in the officer’s leg.
“Each of them looked at the situation and did what should be done,” said District Deputy Prosecutor Shane Waller. The suspect was “ready to fight an armed individual and try to kill them in broad daylight, and they have always stopped”.
The shooter, later identified as Yuhao du, pleaded guilty of attempted murder and tried to take a firearm from a peace agent exercising his functions. He was sentenced to 23 years in state prison.
Another recipient was arrested in a hotel in 2019 before being identified later as a survivor of human trafficking.
“I did not even know what human trafficking was until the night I was arrested, which was several years in life,” said Erin Wilkerson, who has been recognized for his efforts since then, helping other girls forcing similar situations. “Humanity is the key. It is not difficult to treat someone like a human. In the end, this is the message I want to receive. ”
Wilkerson began to speak to the police to defend a better understanding of the world of human trafficking and the situation in which young women are forced. The detective of the San Diego police, Dan Dierdoff, said that his talks had changed the opinions of the members of the police, who can, in turn, change the lives of others.
“I don’t think I have seen someone as loudly as she in my career,” said Dierdoff.
Robert Moore winner worked as a security guard when he witnessed a shootout at the end of the evening in Spring Valley and came with a seriously injured victim and his crying child.
On April 24, 2021, Moore was about to work when he saw a man coming out of an armed car from an AK-47 and shooting a father, a mother and their daughter, who were parked in front of an alcohol store.
Instead of moving away, Moore headed for the drawn sedan which was then on fire. The father and the child were not injured, but the mother had been shot. He loaded her in his car and immediately took her to the hospital. Karmen Anderson, 40, died two days after the shooting, the investigators said.
“He ran to gunshots … and did everything in his power to help the victim get his best chance of survival,” said District Prosecutor Kerry Conway.
Jamerieo Austin was finally arrested and accused of murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
