1999 Winner—Police Officer of the Year

"He saved my life because he cared," declared 23-year-old Malikah Jamison, describing Foster's heroic actions when he accompanied her to her apartment to obtain a photograph of Adrian Howell, the former boyfriend and father of Jamison's five-year-old daughter. The photograph was needed to identify Howell so he could be arrested for sexually assaulting Jamison.

The day before the shooting, Howell had picked the lock on her apartment and forced his way in. "He had a knife, and he told me he was going to kill me with it," Jamison recalled. A 27-year-old substitute teacher, Howell had sexually assaulted Jamison at knifepoint for two hours. When she finally managed to escape, Jamison was taken by the police to the hospital.

The next day, after filing a complaint, Jamison was accompanied by Foster to her apartment where the ambush occurred. "I knew I was in trouble when I heard a noise," Jamison recalled. "It was my former boyfriend. He was crazy." As Foster stepped in front to shield her, he raised his radio to call for backup.

Suddenly, Howell charged from a back bedroom with a gun in his hand. "He didn't say anything," Foster said. "He just started shooting and running toward me. I felt a bullet go through my hair. I had the radio in front of my face and stopped the next round with it. It was obvious he was going to kill me so he could kill her. The next round hit me in the shoulder. The he ran up and tried to shoot me in the head. I ducked and was hit in the upper back. As I crashed into a radiator, I drew my weapon and began firing. I hit him in the side of the chest. He continued trying to get to Jamison before collapsing and dying."

I was so scared, I couldn't move," Jamison told PARADE. "After I heard Officer Foster calling in on the radio, 'Cop down, cop down," I ran out and screamed for help and got a woman in one of the apartments to call 911." One of the first officers to respond was Foster's own son, 25-year-old Al-Terique Whitley, who is a patrolman with the Newark Police Department. "When I got there," Whitley said, "they told me my father had been shot. After officers said that my dad was on his way to the hospital, I started to breathe again."

After 18 years on the force, Foster was forced to retire because of two bullets that cannot be removed.

The highest national honor in law enforcement, the Officer of the Year Award had 10 honorable mentions:

• Officer James Butler, 35, of the Chicago, IL, Police Department, for helping to apprehend two suspects who had killed his partner;
  
  
• Officer Kathleen Conway, 25, of the Cincinnati, OH, Police Department, who killed an assailant who had shot her four times with a .357 Magnum;
  
  
• Officer Steve Downie, 41, of the Tulsa, OK, Police Department, for exemplary police work resulting in 442 warrants and 225 arrests in the 11 months after he returned to duty following severe injuries inflicted by a robbery suspect, who killed his partner;
  
  
• Officer Kevin Foster, 29, of the Philadelphia, PA, Police Department, for capturing an armed assailant, who had just robbed two people;
  
  
• Officer Vonda J. Higgins, 38, an undercover narcotics officer with the Houston, TX, Police Department, for rescuing her partner from the gunfire of a drug dealer, who then shot her through the neck, leaving her a quadriplegic;
  
  
• Officer Joseph P. Kertez, 28, of the Scottsdale, AZ, Police Department, for killing a man suspected of drug and traffic violations, who had overpowered a female police officer and shot her with her own gun;
  
  
• Officer Joseph Landis, 32, of the Columbus, OH, Police Department, for rescuing the driver and an unconscious passenger from a burning vehicle;
  
  
• Detective Eric Ratliff, 40, of the Alexandria, VA, Police Department, who, while off duty, responded to a call for assistance and killed a rape suspect who was threatening his life and the lives of two other officers;
  
  
• Officer Edward C. Rodriquez, 28, of the New York State Park Police, for rescuing a 12-year-old boy from the freezing polluted waters of the Harlem River;
  
  
• Officer Keith Thompson, 35, of the Omaha, NE, Police Department, who was paralyzed from the chest down when his patrol car was struck by a stolen vehicle he was pursuing, and who, after months of rehabilitation, has joined the Telephone Response Squad.