To start out the year, the Loyal Order of the Moose Verde Valley Lodge 1449 held its annual Public Safety Recognition Awards.
Featured among the recipients was Cottonwood Police Department Detective Clint Dobrinski, the officer responsible for responding to a potentially life-threatening gunshot wound to the thigh of CPD Sgt. Jeremy Daniels during a March 21 encounter between police and members of the Gaver family in the Cottonwood Walmart parking lot.
In addition to Dobrinski’s actions and Daniel’s gunshot wound, the incident ultimately resulted in eight CPD officers and a Wal-Mart employee being assaulted.
Enoch Gaver, 21, was shot and killed during the fight with police. The Gavers’ litigation is ongoing, with six individuals’ charges ranging from aggravated assault to attempted homicide to obstruction, according to Arizona Department of Public Safety press releases.
Even for Dobrinski — a man with more than 20 years experience as a paramedic firefighter, including acting as a tactical paramedic with the Verde Valley Regional SWAT Team prior to becoming a police officer — the encounter was unprecedented in his four-year police career. By the time he arrived on the scene, Daniels was on the ground, badly in need of medical attention.
Knowing Dobrinski’s history as a paramedic, his fellow officers sent him directly to the wounded man. Dobrinski had Daniels attended to and in a hospital-bound vehicle within minutes.
“It’s absolutely an unusual event when you have an officer critically injured like that,” Dobrinski said, adding that he found it challenging to alter his mode of thinking — making that move from dealing with strangers in need of medical attention to helping a fellow officer. According to Dobrinski, knowing that a peer needed attention was a new kind of stress, especially amid a fight still in progress.
“It’s very hard to switch roles,” he said.
Nonetheless, Dobrinski’s actions were successful: Though retired from the department, Daniels is on the road to recovery and had big plans to engage with the community he has spent years serving.
“He’s going to find something where he can do good things for humanity,” Dobrinski said.
The sentiment is typical for Dobrinski, who good-naturedly declines to talk about himself and his accomplishments. Though grateful for the award from the Moose Lodge, he said that any of his peers would be worthy of the recognition.
“Public servants don’t like to talk about themselves,” Dobrinski said. Many of them, he added, prefer being on the sidelines, contributing in ways often unseen by the public.
