An Offically Heroic Cop

It's not often I say nice things in print about Seattle police, but this Robert Jamieson column from Saturday, June 24, about Officer Steve Leonard opens the door. Leonard is the East Precinct cop who quickly responded to the shooting in progress when raver-hater Kyle Huff was murdering six innocent people at a Capitol Hill party in March. My initial hunch had been that Leonard did go above and beyond the call in some fashion. I was right:

By approaching the house right away, Leonard pushed aside his training to wait for backup.

If Leonard hadn't got out of his car right away, instead of waiting a couple of minutes for backup to arrive, at least two more—and maybe even more—innocent party-goers would have been murdered by Huff, who upon seeing Leonard turned a shotgun on himself. Leonard has played the attention he's gotten in an "Aw, shucks" sort of way, which is to be expected.

I'm guessing he won't play off the medal of valor he ought to get for his actions.