On June 3, 1991, in Racine, Wisconsin, a mother was crossing the street at a crosswalk with her two daughters, when they were hit by a truck driven by a violent 35-year-old man, who then fled the scene.
Racine police officer Russell V. Cera, 29, was off duty when he witnessed the incident and pursued the truck on foot to obtain its license plate number.
“I thought he was drunk and jumped out of my car to stop him from taking off,” Cera said in the Nov. 15, 1994 edition of the tabloid Globe.
About five blocks from the scene of the hit-and-run, the truck driver accelerated and struck a vehicle in front of him, which caused a chain reaction and a collision with two other vehicles.
The accident allowed Cera to catch up to the truck and he approached the driver’s door. The driver exited the vehicle and waved a machete in the air. Cera told him to drop the weapon. The man moved toward Cera and chased him for a few feet before he returned to his truck.
An 80-year-old man whose vehicle was involved in the collision exited and approached the assailant, and the driver immediately attacked him, striking him with the machete at his head, shoulder, and back. When the innocent man attempted to cover his face with his arms, a slash from the machete severed tendons in his hand.
Seeing the attack, Cera ran toward the assailant and yelled at him again to stop and drop the machete. According to the investigation from Hero Fund Investigator Marlin Ross, the two men shared a brief dialogue.
When Cera told the assailant that police were on the way, the assailant responded, “I want the police!”
Cera ran back to his car and retrieved his badge. He showed it to the assailant and said, “Put down the knife! I’m a police officer!”
The assailant answered back, “Come here so I can kill you.”
Racine native and high school teacher Gary F. Lamberty, 41, arrived shortly after the crash with a friend. Lamberty’s friend aided the 80-year-old man and escorted him away to safety at Lamberty’s nearby apartment.
The assailant continued to terrorize people in the vicinity of the collision. He approached the driver’s door of another vehicle with a 47-year-old woman inside and struck the window with the handle of his weapon.
In an effort to distract him form the woman, Cera again ran toward the assailant and taunted him with shouts of, “Come and get me!”
The taunt briefly prompted a brief chase by the assailant, but he soon returned to the woman’s vehicle. He smashed the glass and reached into the car where he struck the woman in the throat with the machete. The woman raised her arm to protect her face, and when the assailant swung again, he fractured her forearm and two bones in her hand, along with severing two tendons. A delivery truck driver was nearby when he drove his truck toward the assailant and pinned him against the driver’s side of the woman’s car. The assailant ceased his attack on the woman.
Lamberty, at the time believing that the assailant had been subdued, left the immediate vicinity to tend the 80-year-old man’s wounds. With his friend, Lamberty carried the man to a nearby fire station.
Meanwhile, Cera moved to subdue the assailant, but the crazed man freed himself and again chased Cera in an attempt to kill him, only abandoning the chase to attack another innocent bystander.
He approached a 39-year-old woman in the lot of a car dealer and struck her in the neck. She fell to the ground where the assailant continued to attack her.
Lamberty saw the assault while on his way to the fire station. He picked up a nearby branch, concealed it behind his back, and approached the assailant. The violent man slashed in the air at Lamberty, who moved to position himself between the assailant and the woman on the ground. Lamberty waited for a clear shot before he attempted to strike at the assailant.
Cera, who continued to taunt the man, and two firefighters approached, one armed with a hooked pole and the other with a fire extinguisher. The firefighter with the pole swung and missed. He swung again, but the assailant grabbed the pole and took possession of it. The extinguisher proved to be of little help, and both firemen fled back to the station.
After he gathered some rocks, Cera threw them at the assailant, hitting him in the back. The assailant pursued Cera to the lawn of the fire station, where Cera picked up a piece of brick, threw it at the assailant, and continued to run away.
He resumed his taunts and led the assailant into the intersection, where the assailant stopped.
Lamberty returned to his apartment to retrieve a broom handle when he saw the assailant standing in the intersection with his back turned to him, his focus on Cera. He approached the assailant from behind as the man attacked Cera with the hooked pole and struck his elbow.
“When I went after him there was no doubt in my mind who was going down, and it wasn’t going to be me,” Lamberty told the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Lamberty grabbed the assailant from behind and took him to the pavement. Cera also jumped atop the assailant, along with a firefighter, a car salesman, and other men. They held the man down on the ground until police arrived.
“It felt like the whole city of Racine jumped on my back,” said Lamberty.
In the aftermath of the incident, the man was later tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.
While the mother and her two daughters were taken to a hospital after they were hit by the man’s truck, they were not critically harmed, and recovered. Those attacked by the assailant following the collision, including the 80-year-old man, 47-year-old woman, and 39-year-old woman, sustained significant injuries that required recovery, but all survived.
Cera was treated at a hospital for a contusion and abrasion to his left arm. Lamberty was likewise examined and treated for lacerations and abrasions. Both men recovered.
Many witnesses were understandably shaken by the incident that occurred.
“It sent a shiver down my spine,” one witness told the Journal Times. Following the incident and the stories that came out of the harrowing experience, both Cera and Lamberty were recognized by the Hero Fund for their heroism in June 1992.
Cera showed humility when asked about what he had done.
“I’m no hero,” Cera told Journal Times. “I’m one of those guys that always wanted to be a police officer, and I probably would have chased the suspect even if I wasn’t on the force.”
Cera credited Lamberty for the actions he took to subdue the assailant.
“It was a nice tackle,” Cera said.
Lamberty was similarly humble about the role he played.
“What’s so heroic about getting someone from behind?” Lamberty said. “I had the opportunity to stop him and I did. I don’t see anything heroic about it.”
Lamberty lived to be 70 years old, dying on Sept. 2, 2020, in Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin. He was described as loyal, honorable, generous, and a respected man. He is survived by his two daughters and his five grandchildren.
Cera still lives in the Racine area as a blue-collar worker.
–Griffin Erdely, Communications Assistant