Post Falls names officer of the year

POST FALLS – It was a moment of gut instinct combined with years of training.

Pat Leonard and several other Post Falls police officers were the first to respond to an assisted-living facility partly engulfed in flames on an early April morning when they were told there were more people still trapped inside. The officers split into two teams – one rushed inside, not knowing where to look or who’d they find, while the other waited outside near the rooms’ windows.

Inside, enveloped in smoke and darkness, the officers slid along walls until they could make out the door handles to the living units. Since some of the elderly residents were bedridden, officers carried them one by one to safety.

By daybreak, 15 residents had been plucked from their rooms and no one had been hurt. Although that rescue occurred last year, it was fresh on the minds of the Post Falls Police Department staff as they recently chose Patrol Officer Leonard as the department’s Officer of the Year.

“He’s just a model employee,” said Scot Haug, Post Falls police lieutenant. Of that fire last year, Haug added: “I think a lot of people had that in mind when they voted.”

A North Idaho native, Leonard, 46, came to the Police Department four years ago after serving 10 years with the Idaho Transportation Department. There, he worked for several years at the port of entry near Post Falls before becoming a reserve officer for the city. From there, Leonard, a father of two daughters, went to the Peace Officer Standards and Training Academy in Boise, where he lived in a dorm, with a roommate, for the three-month-long program.

“That was different at my age, but it was all right,” Leonard said.

Then, a position opened in the city’s Police Department and Leonard jumped at the chance. Police Chief Cliff Hayes described the 46-year-old Leonard as a very cool, calm and collected officer dedicated to the community he serves.

“He’s just been an excellent part of our team,” added Haug.

Though there are many officers who also deserve to be recognized and who put their lives on the line every day, the assisted-living facility rescue was an exemplary case in point of Leonard’s dedicated service to Post Falls and its Police Department, Haug said. “He truly is a community-minded officer.”

The Police Department’s staff selects three individuals four times a year in three categories, including volunteer, staff and officer service. Then, the entire department votes on the yearly honor for each of the three separate categories. Leonard was selected from a pool of four other sworn officers, who include detectives as well as patrol officers, who had also won the quarterly award. The honorees received plaques and attended a joint banquet with other city public services, such as the Fire Department, in their honor hosted by the Post Falls’ American Legion.

“It was a surprise,” Leonard said, “but a great honor, I thought, being selected by my peers.”

However, the patrol officer was quick to add, those other officers who willingly put their personal safety aside and rushed to the aid of the elderly that April morning deserve commendation as well.

Recalling as he rounded the street corner in his patrol car to see flames pouring from the facility’s windows and black smoke billowing into the sky, Leonard said: “It was a different feeling.” For several days after the fire, he could still taste smoke in his lungs. But, Leonard added, at the time, your thoughts aren’t on anything but: What can I do to help?

“You don’t think about your own life,” he said. “You go in and do what you can. And this time, everything happened to work out alright.”