Police Chief Rosie Sizer gave a civilian heroism medal this morning to a man who helped the cops catch a gunman on SE Holgate, Monday night.

Greg Geist was riding his motorbike down 39th Ave, when he saw the gunman running down the street away from where he had shot at the cop. Despite being in the line of fire, Geist turned his bike around and followed the man into an apartment complex, where he was later apprehended. The cops say if it weren’t for Geist’s actions, the gunman would have gotten away.

“I think we all wonder in a crisis or a time of violence how we would respond as citizens,” Sizer told Geist in a room full of cops and TV cameras in the Justice Center on SW 2nd. “You helped police officers in a time of real jeopardy, and you helped the community in getting a dangerous person off the street. I just have tremendous admiration for your actions that night.”

Geist said he had not expected such a ceremony. “I hoped to meet Chief Sizer to tell her how professional, humane, and incredibly impressive her officers had been. That’s why I came here today,” he said.