COPS HONORED---THREE DISABLED OFFICERS PERSEVERE
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelley presented Inspector James Guida, Lt. James Doherty, and police officer Peter Bolte with the New York City Police Department’s Theodore Roosevelt Award in recognition of each officer’s endurance and performance regardless of life-threatening illness or injury.
“Theodore Roosevelt said, ‘I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and lived them well,’” said Kelley. “Every year, the winners of this award take their place among those who have confronted the most difficult circumstances imaginable and overcame them. You are an inspiration to us all.”
Guida is commanding officer of the Narcotics Borough Manhattan South and a 30-year veteran of the department. In 2007, he discovered a lump in his leg, which doctors diagnosed as cancer.
Two years after surgery to have the tumor removed and subsequent radiation treatments, cancer was found in his left lung, requiring another operation and more treatment. After it spread to his spine in 2010, three of Guida’s vertebrae were removed and replaced with rods and pins.
Throughout his ordeal, he continued to excel at work. Under his leadership, arrests in Narcotics Borough Manhattan South increased three of the four years he has presided over the command, and he has overseen hundreds of successful search warrants. Guida previously commanded the 88th Precinct, the 42nd Precinct, and the Brooklyn North Gang Unit.
Doherty is the commanding officer of the 90th Precinct Detective Squad. He aspired to return to full duty after being nearly killed while riding a motorcycle off-duty in a hit-and-run accident in 2002. The accident in Florida severed his left leg below the knee, shattered his femur, fractured his elbow, and dislocated his shoulder, causing massive blood loss.
After returning to New York, he underwent several skin grafts and learned to walk with a prosthetic leg, completing the NYPD physical agility test only 14 months after the accident that nearly took his life.
Since then, he has earned promotions to sergeant, lieutenant, and lieutenant commander detective squad. He now oversees investigations in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Bolte of the Manhattan North Auto Larceny Unit felt excruciating pain on the left side of his head in 2008, which was originally diagnosed as impacted wisdom teeth. In fact, an artery in his head had ruptured, filling it with blood, caused by a cerebral aneurysm.
Doctors gave him a 30 percent chance of survival. Eventually, the bleeding and swelling subsided, but Bolte’s cognitive abilities were significantly impaired.
He underwent month of intense rehabilitation, slowly regaining his memory and ability to speak. Since returning to work in 2009, Bolte has affected more than 100 arrests for auto theft, narcotics, and gun possession.
These men are indeed an inspiration to us all.