Last June, six police officers saved a mother and her three children from being killed by a gunman inside the West District Police Station on Communipaw Avenue.
And this past January, four firefighters got two women safely out of a burning building on Seventh Street.
The 200 Club of Hudson County held their annual awards luncheon on May 3 at the Charthouse Restaurant in Weehawken, honoring firefighters and police officers for a year’s worth of rescues.
The club was set up in 1984 to recognize the work of county law enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency medical services personnel. It also provides financial support and educational assistance for those departments.
This year’s luncheon was dedicated to the memory of Jersey City police officers Shawn Carson and Robert Nguyen, Emergency Services Unit officers who died last Christmas Day after the police vehicle they riding in plunged off the Lincoln Highway Bridge and into the Hackensack River. Their deaths were the result of the bridge being left open to allow for a tugboat to pass under it.Jersey City receives honors
The 200 Club gave their Valiant Teamwork Award to seven Jersey City police officers and four Jersey City firemen.
Captain Joseph Serylo, Sgt. Timothy Harmon, Det. Jack Bennett, and officers Patrick Kirwin, Alex Frazier, and Michael Meyers of the Jersey City Police Department were honored for their heroic work last June in saving the mother and her three children.
Jersey City Fire Department Captain Phillip DeCresce and firefighters Patrick Healy, Richard Mulligan, and Raul Vega were honored for getting two women out of the burning building on Seventh Street.
The 200 Club Valor Awards went to Jersey City Firefighter Patrick Murphy and JCPD Deputy Chief John Sheyka.
Murphy was recognized for helping a young mother and her children from a two-family Duncan Avenue house that caught on fire in June of last year. Sheyka was awarded for talking a man out of holding the owner of a Journal Square jewelry store hostage in September.
Special Recognition awards went to Secaucus Police Sgt. Glenn Amodeo, Officer Robert Ulrich, NJ State Police Lt. Mark Kelly, Det. Sgts. Cesar Huaman, Glenn Lubertazzi, and Richard Scudder, and detectives Pete Layng and Guy Staniewicz.
Amodeo and Ulrich stopped two teenagers from throwing the dismembered body of a young woman over the Union Avenue Bridge in Rutherford in late July. It opened a murder investigation.
State Police officers stopped a shipment of 50 kilograms of cocaine estimated at $1.25 million from coming into Jersey City in November. Weehawken, North Bergen student get scholarships
At the luncheon, scholarships named for Carson and Nguyen were presented respectively to Joseph Poole, a Weehawken High School student, and Erik Solan, a North Bergen High School student. Both are children of Jersey City police officers.
The 200 Club also awarded scholarships to high school students Gary Brown and Arden Beesley.
The Jersey City Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 4 also gave scholarships to Ryan Reynolds, Kevin J. Gardner, Michelle Chevestick, and Victoria Hartnett.
The Jersey City Fire Department’s Firefighter Union Local 1066 & Fire Officers Union Local 1064 Scholarship went to Jillian Hadfield and Samantha Killeen, and The Hudson County Police Chief’s Association Scholarship went to Matthew J. Ventolo. Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com