JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – They were strangers until fate brought them together exactly one year ago. Now, a friendship between a Jacksonville police sergeant and a patrol officer is forever made -- topped off with a prestigious honor presented by the sheriff.
Never-before-seen police body camera footage helps paint the picture of what happened the morning of Feb. 23, 2023, moments after Sgt. Steve Rudlaff saved the life of Officer Jennifer Johnson.
Rudlaff, a JSO homicide sergeant, was headed to work -- driving past the Walmart Supercenter on Philips Highway -- when he happened to glance over at just the right time.
“I was driving this way, and I looked over, I was like, ‘Oh, she’s got somebody stopped.’ Next (thing) I know, he punches her in the face. She falls down, and he’s punching her,” Rudlaff said.
Other officers rushed to the scene after hearing one of their own was under attack. Their body cameras captured the moments after.
Rudlaff describes to them the brutal beating he witnessed that led him to turn his car around, get out, and run after and subdue Johnson’s attacker.
They learned Johnson had been responding to a shoplifting call before the encounter with 40-year-old Joseph Merrill, who was taken into custody by the other officers who rushed to the scene.
Their body cams show Rudlaff walking directly over to Johnson to hug the fellow officer he’d just saved -- someone he had never met until that moment.
“Thank you. Where…where were you?” Johnson asks Rudlaff.
“I was comin’ this way,” Rudlaff answers while pointing. “I saw him start punching. I f***ing pulled across the median and left my car in the middle of the road!”
Johnson’s adrenaline was still high, and at first, she didn’t realize the extent of the damage to her mouth, despite being bloody. But you can see and hear on body cam as the pain starts to set in.
“My mouth hurts so bad,” Johnson says. “My teeth are like, all jacked up.”
They were “jacked up.” In fact, her jaw was broken. The force of the blows actually shifted her bottom teeth into two rows.
“This suspect was on top of the police officer, bashing her head in,” the prosecutor explained later in court,
Sheriff T.K. Waters said Merrill had also tossed Johnson’s radio away from her during the beating -- making it impossible for her to call for help. So, Rudlaff’s intervention is credited with saving Johnson’s life.
One year after fate brought Rudlaff to be there at just the right moment for Johnson, she was there for him, by his side as Waters honored him with the Supervisor of the Year award.
“I should mention that the suspect is a convicted felon. And located inside of the duffel bag was a hatchet,” Waters said at Rudlaff’s awards ceremony.
The sheriff then turned from the podium, looked at Rudlaff and said, “Steve, thank you.”
“I applaud your quick thinking and heroic actions that day,” the sheriff went on to say to Rudlaff. “We are continually grateful you were in the right place at the right time. Thank you for being a guardian angel.”
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Cheers and applause surrounded Rudlaff as Johnson stood strong and proud at his side -- smiling at her friend and savior.
“(It’s) a blessing to be able to be here to witness him receive this award,” Johnson said. “And to go up there and just stand beside him. Congratulate him. It means so much to me, to my family.”
Johnson’s boyfriend, children and parents were at the special ceremony. She said explaining it to her children was simple.
“‘That’s who saved mommy. That is who helped mommy that day,’” she told them.
Rudlaff said he thinks about that fateful day “on a daily basis.”
“When you drive through the area, you think about it. And you think about it more with the friendship I’ve now built with Officer Johnson over the year,” he said. “The biggest reflection is, I think God put me there at the right time. That’s the only thing I can think about and pray for, that I was intended to be there.”
A connection and perfect timing that seems to keep happening.
“There’s been moments, too, where maybe I’ve just had a bad day, and I’ll get a text from Sgt. Rudlaff, just checking on me, you know?” said Johnson. “It’s like the timing of everything. It’s really incredible.”
Now, Rudlaff has been awarded by the sheriff and Johnson is healing and back at work -- one year to the day after a twist of fate changed everything for both of them.