St. Joseph officer McElroy to receive Missouri’s Medal of Valor award
By Cameron Montemayor
One of the St. Joseph Police Department’s own will be honored with the highest award a public safety officer can achieve in the state of Missouri.
City officials announced Monday that St. Joseph Police Officer Justin McElroy was selected to receive the Missouri Department of Public Safety’s Medal of Valor award for his exceptional handling of a vehicle pursuit with a dangerous suspect in St. Joseph in December 2023.
McElroy is just the second St. Joseph officer to ever receive the state’s Medal of Valor award and the first since Kenneith D. Smith Jr. 14 years years ago. The award was created in 2004 to recognize public safety officers who exhibit extraordinary decisiveness, regardless of his or her personal safety, in the attempt to save or protect human life.
Award recipients can include emergency personnel, corrections officers and firefighters. Court and civil defense officers are also eligible.
On the night of Dec. 26, 2023, McElroy and other officers were attempting to perform a traffic stop on a U-Haul truck that was reportedly involved in multiple thefts. The driver of the vehicle, 39-year-old St. Joseph resident Nicholas Glen Newton, had an active warrant for a parole violation and had previously served two three-year prisons sentences in 2015 and 2020 for felony burglary and tampering with a motor vehicle.
Newton refused to pull over and began to flee from officers. olice were later forced to deploy spike strips, causing Newton to lose control of the vehicle, left the roadway and got stuck on the railroad tracks around the 1600 block of Garfield Avenue.
Newton plead guilty June 7 to an amended charge of receiving stolen property, a class D felony, after initially being charged with unlawful possession of a firearm. Newton is scheduled for sentencing on July 22 in front of Circuit Judge Patrick K. Robb.
A probable cause statement identified Newton as the driver of the U-Haul and said he had a 45-caliber handgun that was reported stolen on Oct. 30.
Officer Justin McElroy began to approach the vehicle and the man who had been driving, pointed a handgun at the officer.
The vehicle eventually became disabled on train tracks near Garfield Avenue and South 16th Street after it drove over police-deployed spike strips.