02-07-2025
Jamestown Police Department sergeant receives NDCPA's Medal of Honor
Jul. 2—JAMESTOWN — A sergeant with the Jamestown Police Department received the North Dakota Chiefs of Police Association's Medal of Honor for his actions in an officer-involved shooting in December in Jamestown.
"It's quite the honor," Cory Beckman said. "It's a pretty prestigious award to get."
Beckman, a Minot native, received the Medal of Honor on June 24 during the North Dakota Chiefs of Police Association Banquet.
"I just thank the community too for all the support they gave me in the Police Department," he said.
Beckman is a member of the James Valley Special Operations Team, a K-9 handler of Briggs and a department peer support team member. He began his career with the Jamestown Police Department on Dec. 1, 2019, and was promoted to sergeant in October 2023.
"All of those responsibilities have helped prepare him for a situation like that," said Scott Edinger, Jamestown chief of police, referring to Beckman's actions during the officer-involved shooting in December. "That's training above and beyond what a normal officer would have received and I know that affected his decision making that night. Initially he could have fired at this guy while he was shooting at Cory, but he had innocent people as a backstop, so he switched positions and then tried to give the guy an opportunity to surrender again, and he started to point the gun at him again, and that's when Corey felt like he was safe to engage him and did."
The Medal of Honor is the North Dakota Chiefs of Police Association's highest honor, according to the association's website. The medal is awarded to a sworn member who willingly and selflessly puts his or her life in the line of duty or distinguishes himself or herself with an act of courage involving risk or imminent danger to his or her life above and beyond the call of duty.
"The member must render themselves conspicuous of an act so outstanding that it clearly distinguishes their courage from lesser form of recognizable bravery," the website says.
The criteria for the award includes the recipient acting within the law and department policies and procedures, acting in the presence of extreme personal danger without hesitation or regard for his or her own well-being, and taking actions willingly and with full knowledge of the grave risk to his or her own personal safety.
Beckman shot Devin Quinn Fontenot, 27, Jamestown, on Dec. 3 after he responded to a report of a man armed with a gun and knife standing in the parking lot behind Fred's Den, 113 1st Ave. S. Fontenot died from injuries he sustained from gunfire.
Fontenot refused to comply with an order to drop his weapon, jeopardizing the safety of Beckman and others, Edinger said at the time.
According to police, the Stutsman County Communications Center received a 911 call at 1:17 a.m. Dec. 3 of a male armed with a gun and a knife standing in the parking lot behind Fred's Den. The caller reported the male had been involved in a physical altercation inside the bar and had been removed.
As officers responded, the 911 caller reported a man was shooting at a building, firing many rounds. When the first officer arrived on the scene, the man later identified as Fontenot was still firing rounds in the parking lot.
Edinger, who nominated Beckman for the award, said Beckman turned on the emergency vehicle lights as he was arriving to the scene. He said Beckman intentionally drew Fontenot's attention away from innocent bystanders at the scene.
"He was intentionally putting himself into a position where he could draw this person's fire and attention, knowing he had no idea where he was and he might not ever know that might be his last moments in order to save and protect the people that were there," Edinger said. " ... That says a lot about who he is. The unknown, the danger, all of that was going to be there either way, but he really did put himself in a bad position to protect everybody else."
Beckman said he turned on his emergency vehicle lights to get the shooter to focus on him rather than potentially hurting or killing an innocent bystander.
"My understanding to a shooter response is that you become the target," he said. " ... In the end, somebody did lose their life which is unfortunate. I think any JPD officer that would have been put in that position would have made the same decisions that I did."
Edinger said every call a Jamestown police officer responds to involves some level of instinctive decision making.
"It just varies as to what the risk level is or what the consequences are of that decision," he said. "This one had some pretty grave consequences no matter what he did. It's a terrible thing that somebody lost their life that night, but it's shocking to me that under the circumstances, he was the only one that died."
Edinger said it was "absolutely textbook" the way Beckman handled every decision. He said Beckman had a lot on his mind because he was the only officer involved but was also the supervisor of that shift.
"He directed all of the beginning of the investigation and preservation of the scene and that evidence," Edinger said. 'He directed all of the contacts that were made."
Beckman graduated from Des Lacs-Burlington High School in 2011. He eventually moved to Jamestown in 2013 where he met his wife.
He said his mother was a dispatcher for the Minot Police Department for 30 years and it was always his goal to work in law enforcement.
He said his past jobs have helped him with his law enforcement career in building relationships. At the James Valley Youth for Christ, he said he built a rapport with youth and that helps to build relationships with adults. He said those skills translate to public relations with the community and communication with command staff.
