On a night to honor John Taylor and those who helped him the afternoon last month he was shot, Roanoke Rapids Police Jeff Hinton spoke softly and choked back tears.

“These guys know I might fuss at them,” Hinton explained after the awards at tonight’s city council meeting, where Taylor received a purple heart. “They are all like my family. We’re a very close group and I’m proud of every one of these fellows.”

The first to be recognized were Steve Krimes and Troy Taylor, employees of Iron Mountain Company, an information management firm in Boston.

They were the ones who stopped to assist Taylor with first aid and comfort as he lay wounded off the shoulder of Interstate 95.

The two were heading to a job in South Carolina when they saw what happened and backed their vehicle up on the shoulder to offer help.

Hinton said the men, without concern for their own safety, helped stabilize Taylor. “You played a key role in saving his life. You both are true heroes.”

Mayor Emery Doughtie told the men, “You made a difference in Officer Taylor’s family. You didn’t think about what could happen to yourselves and what you did kept us from remembering him as a fallen officer.”

Said council member Suetta Scarbrough, “You are true heroes and we thank you.”

Deputy Chief Adam Bondarek pins Taylor's purple heart as Hinton

reads the plaque.

Hinton, while giving Taylor the purple heart, said the shooting happened 10 seconds into the traffic stop when he was ambushed by Michael Eugene Edgerton, who on the following day killed himself after being confronted by law enforcement in the woods near Halifax Academy. “On Thanksgiving Day the Roanoke Valley had the gift of John Taylor being released from the hospital to be with his family.”

Hinton honors Battle.

It was James Battle, a truck driver, who called the shooting into 911, Hinton said. “You played a key role in saving his life. You demonstrated true courage above what anyone would expect. You are a true hero, sir.”