On December 20, 2011, Murrieta police Officer David Lawlor was working a routine shift. By the end of that shift, Lawlor had responded to a homicide scene and helped slow the bleeding of a teenage boy who had been stabbed. Because of his efforts, the teenage victim lived and Officer Lawlor became the first officer in the history of the Murrieta Police Department to receive the Life Saving Award. On that quiet morning days before Christmas, Lawlor heard a dispatcher report that a woman on Milkwood Lane was screaming in her front yard. A second caller said the woman shouted that her daughter had been stabbed. Lights and sirens blared as Officer Lawlor and Officer Anthony Ustoy raced to the Burke family home on Milkwood near Los Alamos Hills. As they approached the home, Lawlor spotted two knives in the front yard and came upon Paul Burke, one of three people who had been stabbed that morning. Burke was talking but incoherent. Officer Lawlor, a 22 1/2-year veteran of the force, quickly determined that his wounds were not life-threatening and passed by him to enter the house. He then encountered Paul’s wife, Catherine Burke, who he said was frantic. She managed, however, to tell the officers that the suspect had escaped through the back door. Officer Ustoy ran past Officer Lawlor to chase the suspect, while Officer Lawlor took in the bloody scene and saw a teenage boy in a fetal position on the living room floor. The teenager was the 17-year-old boyfriend of the Burkes’ daughter. As he approached the wounded teen, Officer Lawlor said, the boy murmured “Help me, help me.” “The whole shoulder was just saturated,” the officer said. “I adjusted his clothes and it just starts oozing.” Officer Lawlor’s years of training kicked in and he began compressing the wound with a shirt. He then called to Catherine Burke to bring him towels as he continued to press hard on the teen’s wound. “Because of the amount of blood on the floor, I knew it was serious,” Officer Lawlor said, adding that McCormack appeared to want to help him push down on the wound to stop the bleeding, but he lacked strength to do anything more than keep his hands on Lawlor’s as he pressed. “To the mom’s credit, when I yelled at her to give me towels, she was lickety-split to get them.” It was only when Catherine Burke went to get the towels that Officer Lawlor saw, over his shoulder, the body of the Burkes daughter lying in another room. Paramedics later pronounced her dead. They then turned their attention to McCormack, Officer Lawlor said. They removed the towels from his shoulder and Lawlor watched as blood began squirting from his body, rather than oozing. Paramedics wasted no time in getting McCormack on a gurney, into an ambulance and to an emergency room. Three days later a 19-year-old suspect was arrested in connection with the homicide. Authorities say the crime was motivated by a tenant dispute. Police officials said McCormack’s recovery was due, in part, to Officer Lawlor’s actions. The Life Saving Award has not been bestowed on any Murrieta police officer before because it requires a medical account that shows without a doubt that the actions of a police officer directly contributed to a victim’s survival.