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Lower Merion Detective James Black receives a commendation for heroism from District Attorney Kevin Steele. (Photo courtesy Montgomery County District Attorney)<\/p>\nPLYMOUTH \u2014 For his \u201ccourageous\u201d actions to stop an armed robbery and protect Christmas shoppers at the Kohl\u2019s store in Limerick Township, a Lower Merion detective received a commendation for heroism.<\/p>\n
Detective James Black was off-duty and shopping with his family at Kohl\u2019s on South Township Line Road in Limerick about 8 p.m. on Dec. 22, 2024, when he noticed suspicious behavior by two males and immediately took steps to stop an armed robbery in progress, according to Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele.<\/p>\n
\u201cDetective Black\u2019s actions that night were nothing short of courageous in the face of great danger. Your heads-up actions that day at Kohl\u2019s, Detective Black, not only stopped an armed robbery in progress but protected numerous Christmas shoppers and led directly to capture of the criminals involved,\u201d Steele said as he presented the commendation to Black during a ceremony at the county\u2019s Public Safety Training Campus in Plymouth Township.<\/p>\n
Lower Merion Detective James Black receives a commendation for heroism from District Attorney Kevin Steele. (Photo courtesy Montgomery County District Attorney)<\/p>\n
Black, Steele explained, notified Limerick police that he observed a suspicious vehicle circling the Kohl\u2019s parking lot several times. Black told the dispatcher that he observed two males stop their dark-colored Audi several times, get out of the car and get back in, and that they were wearing all black clothing and purple rubber gloves.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs he watched, Detective Black observed the pair enter the store and split up at the cash registers, and he intuitively knew a robbery was about to occur,\u201d Steele described the incident to spectators who attended the commendation ceremony.<\/p>\n
Before taking action on his own, Black notified police dispatchers and then entered the store. Once in the store, Black observed one of the suspects point a handgun at a cashier while demanding money, while the other suspect stood at the back of the checkout line to act as a lookout, according to Steele.<\/p>\n
\u201cNumerous customers were waiting in the checkout lines since it was just a few days before Christmas, and as they saw one of the males pull out the firearm, store video surveillance shows customers panicking, moving quickly away or ducking down to cover their children,\u201d Steele said.<\/p>\n
Black\u2019s wife and child, who were in one of the check-out lines, immediately recognized what was happening and moved toward the store\u2019s exit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout concern for his personal safety, Detective Black drew his own firearm, identified himself as a police officer and confronted the gunman to thwart the robbery attempt,\u201d Steele explained. \u201cThe gunman was surprised by Detective Black, and a scuffle between Detective Black and the gunman occurred before the gunman and his partner were able to flee the store into the parking lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
By that time, numerous responding patrol units from multiple jurisdictions had arrived and were in place due to Black\u2019s \u201cforethought in reporting his suspicions before taking action.\u201d Steele said.<\/p>\n
Police saturated the area and both suspects were quickly apprehended as a direct result of Black\u2019s intervention.<\/p>\n
The gunman, Von Ian Curry, 21, of Wyndmoor, previously pleaded guilty to charges of robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, receiving stolen property and carrying a firearm without a license in connection with the incident and is awaiting a sentencing hearing.<\/p>\n
Zaire Tyler Ransom-Nelson, 31, of Chester, the lookout, was convicted by a jury in April of charges of robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, simple assault and false identification to law enforcement, in connection with the incident and is awaiting sentencing.<\/p>\n
The commendation presented to Black was among the honors handed to 20 law enforcement officers and six civilians during Steele\u2019s annual law enforcement commendation ceremony. Steele said commendations are awarded to those who make extraordinary efforts and perform exemplary work in protecting and serving county residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cTogether, these stories are of extraordinary courage, of going that extra mile to solve a crime, working to save lives, conducting an extraordinary investigation or fast-thinking action where law enforcement and civilians put themselves in danger. They are stories of compassion and comfort. They are heroic stories,\u201d Steele said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PLYMOUTH \u2014 For his \u201ccourageous\u201d actions to stop an armed robbery and protect Christmas shoppers at the Kohl\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[46,182,183,185,184,186,139,28],"class_list":["post-210954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-courts","tag-local-news","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}