Imagery Available: Coast Guard watch standers receive award for 'saving lives' during domestic violence incident

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JUNEAU, Alaska - The Coast Guard presented Seventeenth District command center controllers with Letter of Commendation Awards Tuesday for their actions during a March domestic violence case in Hoonah.

Awarded were Lt. Nathaniel Johnson, command duty officer, resident of Fredericksburg, Va., and Petty Officer 1st Class Jeffrey Roberto, operations unit controller, resident of Santa Rita, Guam.

During the watch Roberto received a frantic call from a woman reporting she and another woman were being physically assaulted and that she feared for her life and the safety of two infants in their care. While Roberto calmly directed the victim to move to a safe room with the children, Johnson listened on another line gathering clues of their location and relayed them to the Hoonah Police Dispatcher. Local police rushed to the scene to intervene and arrest the man.

"If not for the actions of these heroes," said John Millan, Chief of the Hoonah Police Department, "I most likely would have had a homicide investigation on my hands."

Johnson and Roberto were cited for their professionalism and determination ultimately leading local authorities to the scene to end the violence, upholding the highest traditions of the U.S. Coast Guard.

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