Community Honors Towson Police Officer

A warm hood on a flashy car in the middle of the night in Rodgers Forge led to the breakup of a burglary spree.

The police officer behind the bust hasn't been on the force for decades. In fact, Officer Eric Heyman looks even younger than he actually is.

But the 27-year-old from Parkville, a six-year veteran of the Baltimore County Police Department, was recognized on Tuesday as officer of the year for 2010 by the Precinct 6 Police Community Relations Council for the second time—the first was in 2008. The council gave him the award during their monthly meeting at the Precinct 6 community outreach center in Hillendale.

"He's actually one of my one-man wrecking crews," Capt. Al Jones, the Towson precinct commander, said of Heyman. "He almost has a lucky charm in his pocket. He's just always there. He always catches the bad guys."

Heyman typically works the night shift in Towson, and late one night last year, he followed a burglary call in Rodgers Forge. He decided to stake out the scene.

"I had court later that morning," he said. "And rather than going back home and getting a couple hours of sleep, I thought I'd switch out and put on my plain clothes and sat on the car and I kind of got lucky by 7, 8 o'clock."

Heyman may claim to get lucky quite often. Jones credited Heyman's street smarts and intuition as helping to break that burglary trend in Baltimore County and solve a recent trend of car thefts shared with Baltimore City and Harford County.

"If I could have 115 Officer Heymans working for me in Towson, we'd probably have no crime at all," Jones said.

Heyman's fascination with police work began when he was in elementary school. That's when he sent a letter to Baltimore County police for an assignment. He befriended Sgt. Bruce Prothero.

"We ended up developing a real good relationship," Heyman said. "He used to go to my baseball games when I was little and my whole family actually got pretty close with him."

Prothero was shot and killed while off duty at a Pikesville jewelry store in 2000. As Heyman got older, he felt drawn towards becoming an officer and, when he was 20, entered the police academy.

He said the award was "kind of humbling."

"It makes it a lot easier to work in this area when you have people behind you," he said.

Also, Jones presented awards to two nurses who were in the right place at the right time. On Oct. 19, 2009, Hynda Peterson and Kelly Williams were dining at Stoney River in Towson Town Center when someone started choking. They attempted the Heimlich maneuver and assisted police and paramedics in clearing the area.