Scroll down to watch the full video

The Name on the Paper Wasn’t His Name

The piece of paper looked harmless. That is what I remember most clearly. It was just a name and a date of birth, something I expected to check in a few seconds before sending a driver on his way. It was around 5 a.m. on July 26, 2018, when I found a silver Kia tucked away on a secluded gravel road beside a golf course in Lake County, Illinois. The headlights were off, the car was sitting in an unusual place, and nobody seemed to have a good reason for being there. I radioed my location before approaching, because it was still dark and I was alone. When I reached the driver's window, I asked the man what he was doing there. He looked tired and disoriented. He told me he had just gotten off the road and was headed west. I asked how he had found this place. His answers didn't really make sense. Still, I wasn't looking for trouble. I told him I just needed to identify him, make sure there were no warrants, and then he'd be on his way. “No big deal,” I told him. At that moment, I genuinely believed it.

He said his name was James Duncan and claimed to have a Pennsylvania driver's license. I asked for identification, but he didn't have a driver's license with him. He couldn't produce much else with his name on it either. I explained that the vehicle was parked on private property in an unusual location and that I needed to know who I was dealing with. He seemed sluggish, almost like someone who had been drinking or hadn't slept. At one point, I noticed something around the window that made me wonder if he had been sick. I was trying to read the situation while also waiting for another officer to find our location. My partner, Anthony Loano, was on the way. I gave dispatch the man's name and date of birth and waited for the record check. That was when the harmless little piece of paper became the most dangerous thing in the car.

The response came back: there was no record for James Duncan in Illinois or Pennsylvania. I looked at the man again and asked why Pennsylvania couldn't find the driver's license he claimed to have. He didn't have a convincing answer. The mood changed immediately. Until that moment, I had been treating him like a confused driver who happened to be parked somewhere strange. Now I knew the identity he'd given me could be false. I asked whether he had anything else in the vehicle with his name on it. He seemed increasingly restless. Looking back, that was the moment I should have understood how much danger was sitting inside that car. But the important thing about hindsight is that it comes with information you didn't have at the time.

Then he moved. I told him that if he stopped, I would leave him alone. Instead, he began reaching toward the door. I remember the sudden shift from conversation to fear. He grabbed for something, and I heard myself telling him to let go. Then I saw the gun. He had a firearm in his hand, and suddenly the space between us felt impossibly small. He told me not to shoot him. I remember thinking that I didn't want to shoot him either. I wanted him to put the gun down. I wanted the conversation from thirty seconds earlier back. But there was no going back. I tried to control the weapon with both hands, pushing it away from me, while he reached for another gun. That was the moment I knew there was more than one firearm inside that car. I was no longer trying to identify a man. I was trying to survive him.

Then I heard my partner.

Anthony had been driving toward us after hearing the radio traffic about the false name. He arrived at exactly the moment everything was collapsing. He heard me screaming and saw the man holding two firearms. He drew his weapon and fired through the windshield. The suspect was struck, and the immediate threat stopped. I remember the relief arriving before I could even process what had happened. Then came the fear. Was he going to move again? Was another weapon within reach? Was there somebody else nearby? Anthony secured the scene while I tried to steady myself. We called for medical assistance, because even after someone has tried to shoot you, you still have to do everything possible to determine whether that person can be saved.

Only afterward did we begin understanding who we had actually encountered. The silver Kia wasn't simply a strange vehicle parked behind a golf course. It was connected to a homicide investigation in Pennsylvania. The man inside wasn't James Duncan. Investigators identified him as Kenneth Martell, a 36-year-old man from Pennsylvania. According to the information that emerged afterward, Martell was wanted in connection with a first-degree murder that had occurred only days earlier. Authorities said he had allegedly invaded the home of an elderly retired attorney, Theodore Garver, tied and robbed him, and killed him. They also said Martell had abducted his own mother and her boyfriend at gunpoint and forced them to dispose of Garver's body before fleeing in the same silver Kia. The car that had seemed merely suspicious that morning was actually part of a much larger manhunt.

The vehicle told the rest of the story. Inside were clothing, beer, personal belongings, multiple firearms, and a crossbow. Investigators also found documents and identification connected to Martell and the homicide victim. The man I had been speaking to moments earlier had apparently been living out of that car. Toxicology later showed amphetamine, methamphetamine, and THC in his system, according to the transcript. But none of those discoveries changed what had happened between us. The most important fact was much simpler: I had approached a suspicious vehicle before dawn, asked a man for his identity, and unknowingly stood within arm's reach of someone wanted for murder.

What happened next was harder for me than the discovery itself. Once the adrenaline began to fade, I realized how close I had come to dying. I remember telling the other officers that I was okay, even though my arm was sore from being pushed against the door. I was still shaking inside. My partner was checking on me, and I was trying to convince everyone—and maybe myself—that I was fine. Later, the incident would stay with me in ways I couldn't simply switch off. According to the account, symptoms associated with PTSD appeared after the shooting. I eventually returned to patrol after several weeks away, but loud noises and being alone could trigger memories of that morning. Later, I left the force and filed a lawsuit against the department and its chief alleging discrimination and retaliation related to my treatment after the incident.

That part of the story is easy to miss because the dramatic ending happened at the windshield. People can look at the footage and see an officer surviving a gunfight with a wanted murder suspect. But surviving the moment isn't necessarily the same thing as leaving the moment behind. My partner saved my life that morning. I have never forgotten that. And I also never forgot the piece of paper with the false name on it. It seemed so insignificant when I first looked at it. Just a name. Just a date of birth. Just something to check before I could tell a tired man he was free to leave.

But that was the illusion. The paper wasn't the danger. It was the distraction. While I was looking at the name, the real threat was sitting inches away from me. And sometimes that's how the most dangerous moments begin—not with a scream, a chase, or a warning, but with something so ordinary that you stop looking for what is hidden behind it. That morning, I thought I was checking a name. I was actually standing in the middle of a manhunt.