Police honour crime-fighting couple
Pair among nine people given civic service awards for stepping up and taking action
Crime-fighting duo Katherine Givlin and her husband, Thomas Givlin, figured when they were asked to visit the Victoria police station it was to appear as witnesses — not as community heroes.
“I thought, ‘Oh great, now we have to go to court,’ ” Katherine Givlin recalled. When she found out they were getting an award, she said, “I was practically in tears.”
The Givlins were two of nine citizens recognized with Victoria Police Civic Service Award plaques on Wednesday.
They were cited because they “stepped up and did the right thing in challenging situations … something honorable and good and righteous,” said Police Chief Frank Elsner.
The couple were walking south on Yates Street at Douglas Street about 9:40 p.m. on Aug. 26, when they saw a man in his 20s closely follow an older man out of Mac’s convenience store and then hit him, sending him to the ground.
“I didn’t see it coming,” Thomas Givlin said.
Katherine tended to the injured bleeding man while Thomas, a security guard, phoned police, then followed the suspect as he quickly wove through downtown trying to escape.
Police arrived and were able to arrest the man.
Victoria police Const. Matt Rutherford received an award for giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation on July 8 to a man who was unconscious and reportedly without a pulse. “When the man asked what happened, the paramedics quite simply stated that he had been dead, but thanks to Const. Rutherford, he was now alive,” police said.
Four-year-old Lauryn Naylor was at the ceremony with her two-year-old sister Kylie. All the youngster knows is that her father “helped someone in a car.”
Bill Naylor, a B.C. Transit mechanic, had finished his shift at 2:30 a.m. on July 3, excited to be headed off on vacation.
He happened upon an accident scene where a taxi had crashed into a cement utility pole at Gorge Road East and Garbally Road. He called 911. He approached, expecting the vehicle was empty, but knowing he had a duty to check. “There was dead silence,” he said.
The driver was dead and Naylor saw there were at least two critically injured passengers. A closer look revealed the twisted body of the third passenger, who had not been wearing a seatbelt.
Naylor, a Colwood volunteer firefighter, advised dispatchers on the injuries, and once emergency responders arrived, helped extricate the injured victims.
“I don’t believe I deserve this,” Naylor said.
“I think I did what everybody should do. … All I did was dial three numbers.”
Darcy’s Pub doormen Justin Banman and Brian Bassendowski also went above and beyond on June 30 when Bassendowski chased down a man who smashed a beer glass over the head of another man.
Bassendowski pursued the man out of the bar and down the street and made a citizen’s arrest, while Banman tended to the wounds of the victim who had run out of the bar and collapsed on the sidewalk.
“I honestly didn’t think about it,” Banman said. “It was instinct.”
Sherriffs Doug Lenuik and Roger McMaster, fixtures at B.C.’s courthouse in Victoria, were equally modest about their actions and subsequent awards.
On the morning of July 14, the two sherriffs drove by after Victoria Const. Rob Horne was punched in the face by a man who had a warrant out for his arrest.
Seeing the struggle on Fort Street, the sherriffs jumped out of their vehicle and controlled the suspect while the officer called for backup.
As a surprise, the department’s civilian communications co-ordinator Bowen Osoko also received an award recognizing his actions on June 25.
Exiting his vehicle at his home in James Bay, Osoko heard a woman’s screams.
Without hesitation, police said, he ran toward the victim suffering from a head wound and saw the suspect running away.
Osoko removed his shirt and used it to stop the woman’s bleeding. When officers arrived, he offered a detailed description of the suspect.
Elsner said it’s the actions of citizens such as these that make Greater Victoria such a special place to live.