Published: July 01, 2009 08:26 am      

Sapcut awarded for gallantry at previous post

Given Medal of Honor after similar situation in Okla. 16 years ago

By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

A situation Thursday night in which Laurel Deputy Richard Sapcut, apparently fearing for his life, shot and killed a man in the Daniel Boone National Forest, was perhaps similar to a situation in which he found himself in Oklahoma 16 years ago.

After that incident, in which he had been fired upon several times by a pair of teenagers wielding a .30-caliber rifle, then Sand Springs, Okla., police officer Richard Sapcut was given the department’s Medal of Honor.

Sand Springs Police Chief Daniel Bradley said in a telephone interview Tuesday that Sapcut was given the award “for an act of gallantry above and beyond the call of duty” when in a police situation life is in imminent danger.

On the evening of Friday, July 30, 1993, according to an article the next day in the Tulsa (Okla.) World, Sapcut spotted a vehicle with a damaged headlight and stopped it.

Bradley said Sapcut didn’t know at that point the two persons in the vehicle were wanted for car theft in nearby counties.

He added that as Sapcut approached the vehicle, the driver produced the rifle and began to shoot at him. He jumped behind his cruiser.

As the vehicle bearing the alleged car thieves left at a high speed, Sapcut gave chase, the police chief said. As it progressed through downtown Sand Springs, he added, the driver slammed on the car’s brakes in an apparent attempt to wreck the police cruiser and evade Sapcut.

Bradley said the chase led to U.S. 75, a three-lane highway, and by then the passenger was taking potshots, aiming the rifle at the police cruiser.

Finally, Bradley said, the fleeing car, Sapcut’s cruiser and another car occupied by an elderly couple collided.

The alleged thieves’ car and Sapcut’s cruiser came to rest in a ditch while the driver of the third car took it out of harm’s way, the chief said.

The suspects left their vehicle to run and the driver removed the rifle from the car, Bradley said. Because of the collision, Sapcut was unable to open the door of his cruiser and the driver with the rifle apparently realized Sapcut was trapped.

According to Bradley, Sapcut and the driver caught each others’ eye and as the driver raised his weapon, Sapcut shot him.

A Tulsa World story says Sapcut fired his weapon five times and hit the driver twice, in the upper back and the lower back.

It says the wounded driver and the passenger moved to the nearby drainage ditch. Sapcut was eventually able to exit his cruiser and held them in the ditch until assistance arrived.

Because of the Sand Springs police policies, Sapcut remained on active duty because the shooting was not immediately fatal.

The driver of the fleeing car died two weeks later.

16 years later, just before midnight Thursday, Sapcut spotted a Suzuki Samurai with no license plate. When he tried to stop it, the driver refused.

He didn’t know the driver was wanted on drug-related charges in Scott County and fleeing and evading charges in Laurel.

He and a second deputy who came to help began to chase the vehicle from Keller Road, west of London, onto KY 1956 to Fallis City Road, which turns northward about a mile of where the chase started.

As they chased the fleeing vehicle, the road deteriorated from paved to gravel to a muddy logging road. At that point, the Samurai spun out.

The driver reportedly fled the vehicle and began to run.

It is said he brandished a knife and Sapcut fired his weapon, fatally wounding him in the neck.

Sapcut is on administrative leave from the sheriff’s department.