On Halloween night last year, Metropolitan Police officer Kimberly McHugh was on patrol in Washington, D.C.'s Fifth District, when a call came over the radio that a carjacking suspect might be headed her way.
In a matter of moments, she and fellow officer James O'Gorman, who was in another cruiser, had the suspect in their sights.
Walpole High graduate McHugh, 39, clearly recalls the events leading up to her fateful decision to fire a round from her 9 mm Glock 19 into the shoulder of the carjacker who was holding a hostage at gunpoint. In fact, she recites her tale as if she's talking about any other day.
Nearly seven months later, the two-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police Department has three medals to remind her she did the right thing.
The first award came in early April from the chief of police in Prince George's County in Maryland, where the shooting actually took place after a wild chase led McHugh and O'Gorman across the city border into that state. They received the Chief's Award for their actions.
On April 21, the Mid-Atlantic Women in Law Enforcement Association honored McHugh with its Medal of Valor. Two days later, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department gave McHugh a Medal of Valor, as well.
Metropolitan Police officials released a statement characterizing McHugh's and O'Gorman's efforts in helping to apprehend an armed carjacking suspect as "exceptionally valiant and heroic."
The call that started the pursuit came over the radio around 6 p.m. to keep a lookout for an armed carjacker headed toward the Fifth District, McHugh said.
"Let's say it's not in the tourist areas," McHugh said of what is one of D.C.'s higher-crime neighborhoods.
Along with O'Gorman, McHugh spotted the suspect moving quickly through traffic. According to reports, the suspect had carjacked a BMW station wagon.
After McHugh and O'Gorman turned on their lights and attempted to box-in the stolen vehicle to force it to stop, the driver drove over the median strip, she said. At that point, police chased the BMW.
The pursuit led into Prince George's County, according McHugh. She and her fellow officer continued to follow, broadcasting their location to assisting units. After the suspect crashed the stolen vehicle into a police cruiser, the man - in his early 20s, she guessed - left "with his gun pointing at everybody." It was an automatic pistol, according to the department.
He approached a passing truck with his gun out in an attempt to carjack the vehicle, McHugh said. Instead, "the guy gunned it" away from the area, McHugh said. At this point, a teenager walked into the area carrying a number of boxes from a nearby bakery, she said. The suspect grabbed him around his neck and backed him up against a wall with the gun pointed sometimes at the young man's head, other times at surrounding police officers, and even at himself.
McHugh, O'Gorman, and other law enforcement officials had, by now, formed a sort of "semicircle perimeter," McHugh said. The suspect was ordered to drop his weapon. Instead, McHugh said, "he took the gun and put it into his own mouth."
"I thought it was going to be an ugly ending," she said. Moments later, he shifted from holding the hostage with one arm to holding him with the other. It seemed like he was going to shoot the hostage and then himself, she said.
Presented with a clear shot, McHugh took it. The bullet struck the carjacking suspect in the shoulder. The hostage immediately took off running. But the suspect pointed his gun "like he was going to shoot him anyway," McHugh said. Two other officers opened fire.
The carjacking suspect died at the hospital and the hostage was all right, McHugh said.
The Metropolitan Police Department praised McHugh and her fellow officers for "their calm professionalism in the most stressful situation that a law enforcement officer can face."
McHugh's parents, Harold and Margaret Clarkson, live on Main Street in Walpole. Harold Clarkson said he was very proud of his daughter, who, he pointed out, spent a great deal of time in the military. "She's always been a pretty good kid," he said.
"I guess I've always been in some sort of uniform," said McHugh, who served in the Army National Guard in tours during the first Iraq war in 1991 and in Afghanistan in 2004. McHugh credited her father with convincing her to pursue a spot at the Metropolitan Police Department by whatever means necessary.
"I love it. I love my job," she said.
Jeb Bobseine can be reached at jeb@walpoletimes.com. For daily updates on local happenings visit wickedlocal.com/walpole.
