BRADENTON, Fla. — A handful of Manatee County deputies and volunteers were honored on Friday for their service to the community at the sheriff's office annual awards banquet.
Members of the Manatee County Sheriff's Office gathered Friday morning at the IMG Academy Golf Club in Bradenton for the ceremony. The sheriff's office says the awards were presented to those who went above and beyond to protect the area.
Michael Paparella won the volunteer of the year award. Paparella, a retired Manatee County Sheriff's Office deputy, volunteered his IT skills for the department after returning as a volunteer in May 2019. The sheriff's office says Paparella has helped improve the department's workflow by helping answer telephones, routing calls and duplicating media for detectives, the Public Defender's Office and State Attorney's Office.
Deputy James Racky received the humanitarian award for his work at the Parrish United Methodist Church's Food Pantry Ministry. For the past 11 years, Deputy Racky has helped the church distribute food donations to families in need. According to the sheriff's office, in 2021, Deputy Racky worked with church leaders to organize the church's first drive-thru food pantry, which served 700 families.
Christopher Underwood won the employee of the year award for developing a solution to the sheriff's office body cameras. The sheriff's office says the Axon body cameras deputies use automatically begin recording when they are near a patrol car that has its emergency lights on. However, they don't seem to work with motorcycles. According to the sheriff's office, Underwood found a solution to preventing deputies from having to manually activate their cameras.
The final award went to Lieutenant Sean Felton, Deputy Hugo Garcia, Deputy Monica Ruiz and Deputy Logan Wilson. All four members of the sheriff's office shared the deputy of the year award for their combined efforts to save one person's life during a fire. According to the sheriff's office, on Oct. 19, deputies responded to a duplex where heavy smoke could be seen billowing out of a room. After kicking the door down, all four deputies worked together to pull a man out to safety and waited until emergency crews arrived.