Officer Jared Cardon’s journey of becoming a police officer started out differently than expected. He didn’t watch crime shows as a boy or imagine himself fighting bad guys. Actually, young Jared Cardon didn’t grow up wanting to become a police officer at all. 

 “I didn’t really have any plans to become a police officer. As a teenager I had gotten a few speeding tickets and didn’t like police very much,” Cardon said. 

But his perspective of police officers changed once he finished college and a friend introduced him to the idea of becoming part of the city police department. Officer Cardon said, “Once I got into city municipal law enforcement, I gained insight into how policemen are meant to help people.” 

On March 31 Officer Jared Cardon went above and beyond his responsibilities and did just that.  

Officer Jared Cardon and another officer had just finished helping with a car accident when they heard over their radios that a Taylorsville house was on fire. When the two officers got to the house it was fully engulfed. Neighbors told Cardon that children lived in the home and there had been no sign of them leaving the house. “That changed everything,” Cardon said. 

He began to enter the home, but the smoke was too debilitating. He went to the backyard to find another way into the house when he learned that a neighbor had entered the home looking for the children and had not been seen since. Cardon entered through a window to find the man. “The smoke was so black, light couldn’t penetrate it, and the man must have gotten disoriented and couldn’t remember which way the window was,” Cardon said. He grabbed onto the man, and on his way out he found a kitten and grabbed it, too. 

Cardon later found out that the two children made it out of the home safely. On the Unified Police Department Facebook page, people are calling Cardon a hero. 

“I’m grateful to be a police officer, because of the opportunity I have to help people.”