Local hero Eric Emmanuele, injured while attempting to stop a robbery, retires from service
Local hero Eric Emmanuele, injured while attempting to stop a robbery, retires from service
By Eric Shapiro, March 4, 2022
Eric Emmanuele, who worked as Chief Fire Enforcement Officer/Investigator for the Milpitas Fire Department (MFD) from 2017 till the end of 2021, has retired.
Prior to working for MFD, Emmanuele was a Police Officer with the Milpitas Police Department (MPD) for 27 years, beginning in 1990. In 2012, The California Conference of Arson Investigators named him “Officer of the Year” at their annual conference. In 2015, State Sen. Bob Wieckowski honored him as a City of Milpitas Local Hero.
Then come 2017, Emmanuele parlayed his law enforcement expertise into a role at MFD where he was tasked with investigating fires, bombings, environmental crimes, explosions, and arson. In a unique move, The Milpitas Office of the Fire Marshal devised Emmanuele’s position specifically for a law enforcement officer, not a fire inspector. In his first year at MFD, Emmanuele received the Outstanding Investigator Award from the Santa Clara County Fire Investigations Task Force for the arrest of an arsonist who had committed crimes in Milpitas and San Jose.
Along with his investigating work, Emmanuele was also tasked with the proactive enforcement of the Santa Clara County Health Officers’ COVID-19 order.
But in June of 2021, Emmanuele’s Chief Enforcement Officer position was eliminated by the City of Milpitas. By then, though, Emmanuele had already been off the job, sidelined by an injury and covered by workers comp.
The injury happened back in March of last year. Emmanuele was at The Great Mall when he saw a robbery in progress. A group had been going around and stealing; they happened to run out of the mall and right in front of Emmanuele. “I used my car,” Emmanuele explains now, “to try and block ‘em in.”
His thought process was, the criminals would flee by car and somebody would get hurt. It didn’t enter his mind at that moment that that somebody might be him…