Most people have at some point in their lives wondered how they would react in a life-threatening situation. Would they have the courage and composure to help those in need?

Or, would they freeze with fear and shrink from the challenge?

Apex Police Officer Charles Jones doesn’t have to contemplate such abstract thoughts. He knows with absolute – and double – certainty how he would respond in a crisis when lives hang in the balance. Jones and Officers Lindsey Tote and Josh MacMonagle all received the Medal of Valor on June 16 during the Apex Police Department’s annual awards ceremony. The award is the highest honor the department can bestow upon an officer.

The three officers were the first to respond to the May 30 shooting incident at Super Target in the Beaver Creek shopping center. Mervin Carroll Mims, 67, shot to death his former girlfriend, Apex resident

Guadalupe Rosas, 59, who was a cashier at the store.

Believing more than one shooter was involved, the officers decided not to wait for back up and rushed into the store. They confronted Mims who turned the gun on himself.

“They didn’t blink, they didn’t hesitate,” said Apex Police Chief Jack Lewis. “What they did was quite simply a remarkable act of selfless attention to duty. Everybody now knows there was one shooter and one intended victim. That is not what the police knew when they arrived. The police were told there were two shooters and they believed they were going to encounter more than one armed person.” Lewis said officers have trained in groups of four for such situations. When Jones, Tote and MacMonagle arrived at the scene they believed lives were in danger and they needed to act quickly.

“We train in groups of four and it is rapid deployment where you go in and each of the four officers has a different task and focus,” said Lewis. “Their mission is to locate and neutralize the assailant’s ability to hurt anybody else.

“These three got there and there was panic and terror in the eyes of people who were fleeing. They elected to go in as a group of three to minimize the risk as best they could.”

Less than five minutes passed between the time police received the 911 call and officers entered the store. “The call came in at 11:15 a.m. and within two minutes the first officer arrived,” said Lewis. “Within four minutes of being advised of the call, at 11:19 a.m., they had confronted the shooter.”

A friend with the Los Angeles Police Department later asked Lewis whether the three officers would face disciplinary action for not waiting for a fourth officer before entering the store.

“I told him they were going to receive medals,” said Lewis. “They thought and they were smart. We expect our people to make good judgments and to do the right thing. I’m proud of what they did and I’m proud of their decisiveness.

“If your family or my family or any of our loved ones are in a jeopardy situation then the best we could hope for is that the first to respond would be that decisive, focused and willing to go into harm’s way.” Remarkably, it was just the first of two Medal of Valor awards that Jones received during the ceremony. The officer was also recognized for his selfless actions while being the first to respond to a shooting on Hwy. 55.

“I think people sometimes envision themselves in dire straits situations and think, ‘What would I do?’” said Lewis. “The only person who could tell you ‘this is absolutely what I would do’ is a person who has just done it. For everybody else it is just a vision. To twice act that decisively is no accident or quirk. It is a testament of character that deserves to be held in very high regard.”

Jeremy Jones, 35, of Sanford, was involved in a high-speed chase with his ex-girlfriend, Heather Lee, on Jan. 22. The incident began in Sanford and ended on Hwy. 55 in Apex as he began firing shots at Lee’s car. Officer Jones drove his police vehicle in between the two cars and blocked the intended victim from the shooter.

“Jones very skillfully maneuvered to get his car into the fray,” said Lewis. “The subject was firing at the woman’s car and struck it four times. Jones positioned his vehicle so that he could block him and keep him away from her.”

Jeremy Jones crashed his car and then killed himself with his handgun.

“It was a Friday morning, around 10:30, and traffic was everywhere on Highway 55,” said Lewis. “There were all kinds of people at risk in Apex on that day. But the one person who acted decisively and got to that threat and stopped it was Charles Jones.”

Lewis said the awards committee had already decided to give Jones a Medal of Valor before the Super

Target shooting. His actions at Super Target merited the rare awarding of two such medals.

“The award is given to someone who without regard of their own personal safety places themselves in a situation of great danger, typically to prevent the loss of life or injury to others,” said Lewis. “I’ve seen others receive similar awards but in my entire career I’ve never seen a person in the span of five months do what he has done.

“Rarely do these (incidents) happen. To have the same person twice in that span of time demonstrate that attention and dedication to duty is a significant statement about him as a person and him as a professional police officer. These three (officers) were willing to meet the challenge. Charles Jones was willing to meet it twice.”