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Metro honors its own during awards ceremony Thursday

Updated April 27, 2017 - 10:28 pm

Two detectives whose work led to arrests last year for the 2009 slaying of a teenage boy were recognized at a Las Vegas police awards ceremony Thursday afternoon.

Detectives Darin Cook and Richard Moreno were among the 61 Metropolitan Police Department officers and other employees to receive awards at the department’s downtown headquarters. Officers, dispatchers and other Metro officials earned awards for various acts, including quashing a “suicide by cop” attempt and the coordination of Metro’s response during the final presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

“Simply put, the people in this room have not only risen to the challenge, but have become an example of great police work,” Sheriff Joseph Lombardo told attendees.

Cook and Moreno took home exemplary service awards for their work leading to four arrests in the death of 16-year-old Aric Brill, who was killed outside an east valley house party in February 2009. Another young man also was shot.

“We come to work every day, we do the best that we can for the Brill family, for all the community,” Cook said. “I mean, it is rewarding.”

Aric Brill’s parents, Karen Brill-Kelley and Donald Brill, were in attendance at the ceremony. They joined the detectives on stage for a photo opportunity when the duo received their awards.

“I don’t know how those detectives were able to do what they did, but I’m just really thankful they did,” Brill said after the event. “Because who knows how many other lives they saved just by rounding them people up.”

The four men arrested pleaded not guilty to the killing last summer.

Brill-Kelley said started she started getting nervous the case would go cold six months after her son was killed.

Whenever she would see Metro officers, she would stop to talk to them, she said in a phone interview Thursday afternoon.

“Please keep looking. Please keep looking,” she would tell them. “And they did. They heard me. They saw the pain on my face.”

Cook said the Brill family’s determination and support is what helped police keep chipping away at the case for more than seven years.

“I was able to grieve my son in a more positive way,” Brill-Kelley said. “This is a grateful day.”

Review-Journal staff writer Wesley Juhl contributed to this story. Contact Blake Apgar at bapgar@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5298. Follow @blakeapgar on Twitter.

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