Citizen honored for coming to deputy’s aid.

Jared Shillinger, left, receives the Challenge Coin from Dep. Matt Moss.

#MasonCountyPeople

By Rob Alway, Editor-in-Chief.

LUDINGTON — Sometimes doing the right thing means risking your own personal safety. That’s a choice that Amber Township resident Jared Shillinger made on June 25 when he was driving on North Stiles Road and came across a Mason County sheriff deputy dealing with an unruly subject.

Deputy Matt Moss was just over a mile away when he was dispatched to a report of a man who was lying down in the middle of Stiles Road, between Hansen and Jagger roads. The man had crashed his car but was seemingly unhurt.

Moss pulled up and found the man to be in an agitated state.

“I didn’t know what was going with him,” Moss said. “I asked him to get out of the road but he wasn’t complying with what I was asking him to do.”

At that point Shillinger pulled up.

“I remember Jared coming up to my backside and said ‘I’m not going anywhere and I will be here if you need anything.’ I continued to address the subject and he continued to back off. At one point we had to go hands on and I got knocked down. I had to subdue him with the Taser. Jared was right there saying ‘whatever you need and I will help you out.’ I got him handcuffed and we were heading across the road when he started fighting again. Jared was there again. My backup was a long way away. It was one of those days when there were just two of us on duty.”

Shillinger said he was just doing the right thing.

“I was just reacting and wasn’t really thinking about it,” he said. “I got there and I knew something wasn’t going to go right. It just had a feeling and sometimes you have to go with your gut. I’m just glad everybody went home OK.”

“Jared is an example of what’s right in our country,” Sheriff Kim Cole said. “He didn’t pick up his cell phone and start video taping. He chose to get involved. In a rural community like this, our deputies are by themselves. It’s nice that we have citizens who are willing to step up and help.”

Shillinger was awarded Tuesday morning with the Mason County Sheriff’s Office Challenge Coin, a memento that is given out sparingly by the sheriff’s office. “Only a handful of people have this coin,” Cole said.

Eventually backup did arrive and the subject, 27-year-old Jordan Kenneth Woodring of Ludington was arrested on felony charge of assaulting/resisting a police officer and also a misdemeanor of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated second offense. Woodring has pleaded guilty to both charges and faces up to a year in jail. He is scheduled to be sentenced in 51st Circuit Court on October 18.