The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department honored 124 of their employees for Bravery and Excellence at a ceremony they host twice a year.
The event awards officers who go above and beyond and allows them to be recognized by the department.
This year, among those honored was a unit from the downtown area command who got creative in catching a suspect who had killed 2 homeless people while they were sleeping downtown.
Captain Andrew Walsh says when other tactics weren't generating leads, they used a CPR dummy as a decoy to try and trap the suspect if he decided to strike again.
They dressed the dummy in street clothes and planted in the same area as the other attacks. Around a month later, it paid off when the suspect was caught on camera trying to kill the mannequin and was taken down.
The suspect in that case later pleaded guitly and was sentenced to 8-20 years.
Walsh and his other officers said they were proud the tactic worked, although they joked that initially their higher ups were skeptical. "I heard in certain offices they were writing on the dry erase boards 'only a dummy would use a dummy, so I guess I was the dummy unilt it actually worked.'"
Another group of officers were honored for stopping an assassination attempt on then presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign event at Treasure Island last year.
Trump had already gotten up to speak when a man went up to an officer and tried to grab the gun from his holster to kill the presidential candidate.
Metro officers quickly caught the man without even making a scene, and while also making sure the rest of the event was still covered in case the attack was a diversion.
"It's an absolute honor to know we were part of that to help him successfully survive that incident and now move on to becoming our 45th president," says Sgt. Tabitha Baker who was on duty at the event.
