All right, good evening, and uh welcome to tonight's city council meeting.

We'll begin with a uh moment of silence, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you, and would you please join us for the pledge?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

In accordance with section 84-1412 of the Nebraska Revised Statutes, there is a current copy of the Open Meetings Act available for review and is posted on the wall of the council chambers.

Peggy, please call roll.

Mayor class absent Bushcutter.

Here.

President Nicola Moore here.

At this time, we'd like to invite Chief Waugh to come to uh up to the front for uh presentation of uh commendations.

I'm gonna stand here if you don't mind.

I want to read a little little bit to you.

So thanks uh councilmember Bushcutter and Council for the opportunity to uh be here today.

If I can ask Officer Hughes to come on up here as well.

It's a special day.

This is uh always a great opportunity to come before you to recognize um great work from our police officers today.

Um we're here to recognize Officer Christopher Hughes.

He's an eight and a half year veteran with KPD with a total of 15 years experience from his previous experience at Shadron PD, six and a half years, and he was the on duty police officer in charge on D Shift on January 29th, 2023.

So here we are a little over a year later uh in getting an opportunity to recognize Officer Hughes, and I'll explain why it took that amount of time.

And he was nominated for this award by his sergeant, Sergeant Ori, who's also here with us today, as well as a bunch of uh members of our our team.

On that night, he and his family as well.

Thank you very much for being here.

It's awesome.

On that night, he played a pivotal role with the successful apprehension of two suspects wanted out of Grand Island for kidnapping.

Officer Hughes not only monitored and supervised an active pursuit in the absence of his sergeant, he also conducted post-arrest interviews that ultimately provided the information necessary to successfully locate an infant child who had been abandoned in rural Hall County in minus 20 degree weather.

So a little bit of context to this.

During the early morning hours of January 29, 2023, officers from the Carney Police Department and Buffalo County Sheriff's Office were alerted to multiple child abduction that had occurred in Grand Island involving multiple victims who were very young in age.

Dispatch was successfully pinging the phone of one of the suspects when a deputy from the Buffalo County Sheriff's Office observed the vehicle on a county road north and west of Gibbon and engaged in the vehicle pursuit.

Acting on that information that was known at that time.

Members of KPD D shift, supervised by police officer in charge, Christopher Hughes, acted quickly, setting up at all the east and north roadways leading into Kearney in an attempt to either deassable the vehicle or attempt to locate the vehicle before entering the city limits of Kearney.

Police officer in charge Hughes granted KPD officers permission to leave the city limits and assist with the vehicle pursuit due to the nature of the crime involved.

Officers found the suspect vehicle a short time later abandoned near a field several miles north where the pursuit began.

It should be noted that the air temperature at the time was approximately 20 below zero.

Officers, Officer Payton, Hughes, Officer Stoky, Oreshkoff, and Lobig assisted with attempting to locate the suspects as well as the abducted children due to the car being found abandoned.

The suspects were later located lying in the snow not far from the abandoned vehicle.

Officer Hughes did a commendable job of building rapport with one of the suspects.

That's kind of what police officers do.

They're able to build rapport with suspects.

And after several minutes, was able to successfully obtain a confession and critical information leading to the location of the infant victim.

The suspect informed Officer Hughes after stealing the car, they removed the child from the car while still in a car seat and sat the baby on the doorsteps of a farmstead somewhere on the outskirts of Grand Island.

Officer Hughes was able to identify a possible area where this may have occurred as the suspect did not have an exact physical address of the farmstead.

Officer Hughes passed this information on immediately to the Nebraska State Patrol out of fear that the child was still in a baby seat on a porch in negative 20 degree weather.

Upon notifying it, Nebraska State Patrol, they in turn initiated an alert to residents in the area of Grand Island by utilizing a system similar to the Amber Alert system.

Based on this information sent out in the alert, a farmer located the infant child on a back doorstep of his home in rural Hall County.

The child was unharmed and treated for minor hypothermia in Grand Island, but otherwise was okay.

The information Officer Hughes was able to obtain based on his patience, quick thinking, strong interviewing skills without a doubt, save this child's life.

This is according to Sergeant Ori and I would agree.

I'm extremely proud of the teamwork from all involved.

For these reasons, Officer Hughes has been has been issued the Carnick Police Department certificate of accommodation.

It should also be noted both suspects have been convicted of nine felonies related to this case, and we're both recently sentenced to 60 plus years in prison.

That's why it took so long to bring Officer Hughes here.

We wanted to wait for that case to go through the court system.

So it was my pleasure today to present Officer Christopher Hughes with the certificate of accommodation.

Award to offer Christopher Hughes in recognition and appreciation of your leadership, decision making, and direction acting as police officer in charge on January 29th, 2023, during a conflict dynamic kidnapping investigation.

Your actions and that of your team have a direct impact on the apprehension of two suspects and successfully recovered the kidnapped infant.

Well done, sir.

Sure.

You guys can do.

Okay.

All right.