GENEVA – Batavia police officer Mike Walters was named Kane County Officer of the Year and winner of the Louis Spuhler Award for outstanding police work in 2022 that included Walters rescuing an infant being held by an agitated man who said he would make officers shoot him.

Walters was honored at the 46th annual awards dinner Feb. 23 at Riverside Receptions in Geneva. The dinner was hosted by the Kane County Chiefs of Police Association in partnership with the Batavia Moose Lodge 682, according to a news release.

Batavia Police Chief Shawn Mazza nominated Walters “for his composed professionalism exhibited in a dire situation.”

According to the Batavia Police Facebook page, Walters has been an officer for more than 32 years.

Walters was the first officer to arrive at a domestic violence incident shortly after 11 a.m. Jan. 26, 2022, in the 200 block of South Forest Avenue, Batavia.

The victim reported that her boyfriend choked her and was threatening to kill her, according to police. When Walters arrived, he found the agitated man, later identified as Tyler J. Hummel, 29, according to police, holding a 3-month-old baby.

“The subject, whose hands were scraped and bloodied, would not follow commands from officers to relinquish the child to the mother,” according to Mazza’s nomination letter. “The male subject remained very agitated throughout the incident and continually threatened to harm the baby.

“Officer Walters assessed the situation and kept close enough to rescue the infant, but far enough away as not to escalate the situation and cause the subject to harm the baby,” the nomination letter said. “Officers later learned that prior to their arrival, the male subject forcibly removed the baby from the baby’s mother, then choked the mother three separate times, causing the mother to lose consciousness at one point.”

For more than 74 minutes, Walters maintained a dialog with Hummel, building a rapport with him, remaining calm and persistent in pursuit of deescalating the situation, eventually convincing Hummel to release the baby to a relative, according to police.

“Officer Walters displayed great restraint, patience and compassion during this incident,” Mazza’s nomination letter said. “He quickly understood that the offender was having a mental health crisis and the 3-month-old baby was at great risk of being harmed. If it were not for the actions and determination of Officer Walters, the outcome might have had grave consequences.”

Hummel was charged with two counts of felony aggravated domestic battery and unlawful restraint, and misdemeanor charges of domestic battery, causing a child to be endangered and resisting a police officer, county records show.

Hummel has been held in the Kane County Jail since the incident on $300,750 bond while he awaits trial, court records show.

The Louis Spuhler Award is named for a retired lieutenant from the Kane County Sheriff’s Office, who approached the Batavia Moose Lodge with an idea to recognize top police officers in the county. Spuhler died before he could see his idea put into action, and the award was named in his honor.