Christopher S. Copeland, who rushed to help an Amarillo police officer during a life-threatening incident two years ago, will be honored posthumously with one of the nation’s highest civilian honors for heroism.
The Carnegie Hero Fund is recognizing 17 people including Copeland — who was shot and killed earlier this year — with the Carnegie Medal, given to those who enter extreme danger while saving or attempting to save the lives of others.
‘I just wish he was here to know that he received the award’
Copeland’s mother, Margo Copeland, 73, of Pampa, said her son was always a good man and would help anyone who needed it. “I’m proud of him,” she said during a recent interview after the Carnegie announcement.
She said he was a master mat framer at Right Angle Framing Shop in Fleetwood Shopping Center. “He worked for 21 years at Right Angle, and a lot of people knew him,” she said. “In fact, two of his customers put up $25,000 to 100 Club for him. I just wish he was here to know that he received the award,” she said emotionally.
When asked what he would say if he knew about the award, she said, “Why am I receiving it? It’s just what anyone would do.”
Margo Copeland said her son was shot on the morning of June 8, 2025, on his way to work. He had his dog, Howie, with him. The dog was later given to members of the family. She said her son had two sisters that gotten into everything and he had to protect them, as he did her.
At Copeland’s funeral, Steven Kennedy, the officer Copeland saved, along with his wife, offered their condolences to Margo. Kennedy’s wife said, “If it had not been for your son, my kids would not have a father, and I wouldn’t have a husband.”
“He was my rock,” Margo Copeland said tearfully. She lost her husband before that, so the grief was compounded. At 73, she is looking for reason why her son was killed viciously, when he was a good man. A trial is going on at Randall County Courthouse around his alleged killer. She said she just returned to Pampa from Canyon where she met with trial attorneys and heard about the Carnegie award.
Kennedy said he first learned in October that Copeland would be honored with the medal. He said the national recognition for the man who intervened in a situation that could have gone much worse is humbling, and he wishes Copeland could have received the honor while still alive. “Just to think people would risk their own lives to come in,” he said, “it means a lot.”
Kennedy said Copeland stepped in even though he didn’t have to. “He was a great man,” Kennedy said, adding that Copeland more than deserved the honor.
Copeland rushed to officer’s aid during struggle
During an Aug. 4, 2023, traffic stop in Amarillo, a 36-year-old man attempted to flee the scene. Officer Kennedy, who had initiated the stop, chased the man into an alley and took him to the ground. But during the struggle, the man reached for Kennedy’s loaded pistol in its holster and threatened to kill him. By then, Copeland, a 52-year-old master framer at the time, had heard yelling and saw the struggle from his nearby apartment. He made his way outside and saw the assailant grasping Kennedy’s gun.
Kennedy attempted to keep the weapon in its holster while Copeland crouched beside him. Using both hands to grab the assailant’s hand, Copeland twisted and pulled to remove it from the pistol. Before Copeland could fully secure the weapon, the assailant pulled the trigger and fired the pistol, the bullet grazing Kennedy’s thigh, inches from Copeland’s leg. Copeland remained steadfast and, while Kennedy held down the suspect’s right hand, Copeland grabbed the pistol and handed it to the officer. The man continued to struggle as Kennedy and Copeland secured him to the ground.
“Once everything was handled and the suspect was in custody, I immediately turned around and shook his hand,” Kennedy said. “I knew he didn’t have to jump in.”
Kennedy said he did not realize he’d been shot until later, noting he thanked Copeland before knowing the bullet had grazed his thigh. “As far as the full gravity of the situation, I probably realized that when I first watched the video in the hospital,” he said.
He added that Copeland became a familiar presence in the neighborhood long before that night. Kennedy said the two would sometimes meet by chance at a nearby convenience store, sharing quick conversations over coffee. “It wasn’t every day,” he said, “but every so often I’d try to stop by when I knew he’d be there.”
At the 2023 incident, additional officers arrived nearly six minutes after Copeland first intervened, and the man was arrested. He later pleaded guilty to attempted capital murder of a police officer and possession of a controlled substance and was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
Kennedy recovered after treatment at the hospital. Copeland had scrapes on his left hand and his knees were skinned. Although he recovered from his injuries sustained in the rescue, Copeland tragically died two years later in a different shooting incident.
Carnegie Hero Fund honors 17 brave individuals including Texas teacher who risked their lives
All the men and women being recognized by the Carnegie Hero Fund risked serious injury or death, or were killed, saving or attempting to save others in acts of extraordinary heroism. This is the Hero Fund’s fourth and final award announcement for 2025.
Recipients include a 42-year-old teacher from Hockley, Texas, who disarmed a man with a pistol that entered a school during a student band competition in Pasadena, Texas; three men in Berlin, Massachusetts, who rescued a woman trapped beneath debris after a propane explosion leveled her home; and a 37-year-old truck driver who saved an injured 16-year-old girl from inside a burning charter bus following a multi-vehicle accident in Etna, Ohio.
Among those saved, or attempted to be saved, by this quarter’s Carnegie Medal recipients were seven children, including a 10-year-old whose mother died helping to rescue him from drowning in a river in New Hampshire, and a man trapped inside a burning airplane that crash-landed upside down.
With this announcement, the Carnegie Medal has been awarded to 10,545 individuals since the inception of the Pittsburgh-based Fund in 1904. Each of the recipients or their survivors will receive a financial grant. Throughout the 121 years since the Fund was established by industrialist-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, more than $45 million has been given in one-time grants, scholarship aid, death benefits, and continuing assistance.
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Amarillo man earns Carnegie Medal for heroism, saving officer
Reporting by Nell Williams and Michael Cuviello, Amarillo Globe-News / Amarillo Globe-News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
