For two Emporia Police officers, Dec. 12 started out like any other day and ended up being a day they will never forget.
On Friday, Officers Mark Lake and Scott Jones will be honored in Topeka for their uncommon valor in the events that played out on that December day. Lake and Jones will be given the Gold Award by the Kansas Association of Chiefs of Police at the Awards for Valor Banquet.
Jones was at the Emporia Police Department for a year and a half before he resigned to work on a master’s degree. Lake has worked at the department for 18 years.
On Dec. 12, Jones responded around 2:30 p.m. to a complaint of loud music coming from a vehicle parked outside a trailer court on the east side of Emporia. Lake was dispatched as a back-up officer.
When Jones arrived at the trailer park, he saw the vehicle leaving the area and gave chase. Jones lost sight of the vehicle and later found it parked in a church parking lot a block away. When Jones pulled into the parking lot, the a man leaned out the driver’s window with a shotgun and fired at him. Shotgun pellets struck Jones’ driver’s-side door and window. Jones was not hit. He lay down in the seat of the patrol car for cover and radioed the dispatch center that shots had been fired at him.
“I had just come on duty that day,” Jones said. “We respond to loud music calls every day.”
Officer Lake was sent to the scene and saw the shooter’s vehicle at it was leaving. Both officers gave chase. The shooter drove several blocks toward the right of way of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, where the man stopped, got out and fired more shots at the officers. He then got back in the vehicle and drove off.
A few blocks away, the man got out of his vehicle and ran away. A manhunt ensued and a suspect was later arrested without incident by Lyon County Sheriff Gary Eichorn and Kansas Highway Patrolman Elwood Phelps.
“Officer Jones and Officer Lake should be highly commended for their professionalism and dedication in handling this very dangerous encounter where no one was seriously injured and without utilizing deadly force,” said Michael Lopez, Emporia’s interim police chief. “Officer Jones and Lake demonstrated great restraint and no shots were fired by either officer involved in this incident. Once again, this is a prime example of how quickly a law enforcement officer can find himself defending his life and protecting the general public from harm’s way.”
“It was probably the most intense, most terrifying thing that I’ve ever experienced,” Lake said this morning. “In every experience, your training kicks in and you do what you’re trained to do.”
Jones agreed.
“A lot of times your training kicks in,” he said. “You do training, not thinking. When you think, your emotions come in.”
Lake said it is just chance that he and Jones ended up responding to the incident.
“Everybody down here would have done the same thing,” he said. “It’s not that we’re special, it was just luck of the draw.”