Officer Wuller was driving alone in his patrol car last April when his radio crackled to life. Within minutes he was at an apartment building in North Philadelphia, where he could hear a woman and child screaming. “The doors were locked, and I could hear screaming and blows being struck,” Wuller recalls. “I was pushing buttons, but nobody would open the door.” A man rushed down the stairs but covered his face and raced out the back. Wuller called in a description and that suspect was apprehended a few blocks away.
As backup arrived, Wuller broke the glass door and ran upstairs. “I could hear two men inside saying ‘Where’s the money at?’” Wuller recalls. “I kicked the door in, and there was a masked man. I turned to the guy, and he turned on me with a revolver.”
Another intruder was on the floor, repeatedly stabbing a victim bound in duct tape. “As I was firing at the first guy, the other guy came running toward me with a knife.” Wuller fired 10 shots from his Glock 17, then retreated. When the SWAT team arrived moments later, the victim of the stabbing lay in a pool of blood on the floor. He was bleeding badly, but he was alive. His girlfriend and two children also were rescued from the apartment. Both of the robbers Wuller shot died at the scene; each had an extensive rap sheet for prior offenses.
“He did an amazing job,” says Capt. Deborah Kelly, who nominated Wuller for the award. “They were less than 10 feet away, and both were armed. It was very close quarters, and he got both of them down.”
A nine-year veteran of the force, Wuller has five previous merit citations, ranging from apprehending suspects in a homicide and catching robbers to helping rescue an elderly woman from a blaze. “I’ve had many close encounters,” he says, “but I never discharged my weapon before.”
