I have been really down on LEOs for the past several years because of abuses by a few and a trend towards militarization of our police departments and a propensity to use all the new federal toys that they are given. I would like to start this thread to honor those Policemen that do take their responsibility to Protect and Serve seriously; they truly are heroes and we should thank them. I came across this article and wanted to share it and I like invite those of you that wish to contribute to go right ahead. I will be sharing some really good personal experiences as this thread develops that I have had the good fortune of experiencing and would hope that some of you might feel the same. Heroes to a Stranger You can't put a price on officers who will go the extra mile for those they serve. This story should be taught in every police academy and inservice training class. It's about a couple of cops who went above and beyond for a woman from another country. There were no cameras or reporters or rewards. They just did it. Somewhere, presumably, there was a shift supervisor who recongnized what these officers were doing and didn't stand over their shoulder barking out orders to "get back on the road." Finally, some boss saw that the story of this simple kindness needed to be told and made put the wheels in motion for the press to learn about it. From the Hudson Reporter: Lost in translation Chinese tourist gets stranded; spends night with Weehawken police By Jim Hague 04/15/2007 A Chinese female senior citizen tourist, who couldn't speak a word of English, was inadvertently abandoned by a tour bus at Weehawken's Hamilton Park late Monday night and it took about 10 hours to determine her identity and where she belonged. According to Weehawken Deputy Police Chief Jeffrey Fulcher, 66-year-old Yin Feng Liu was vacationing in the area. She was traveling with a tour bus that stopped at Hamilton Park Plaza around 11:55 p.m. to see the Manhattan skyline, like hundreds of thousands other tourists do every year. However, when the time came for the tour bus to leave, the driver forgot about Liu and drove off, leaving the senior stranded at the park. "Someone called us to say that Ms. Liu was left wandering at Hamilton Plaza," Fulcher said. Police officers Angelo Papadapoulos and Robert Jacobsen were sent to the scene and spotted the woman wandering around the park. They somehow managed to convince the woman to return with them to Weehawken police headquarters, so they could find out where the woman belonged. "Obviously, communicating with her was a problem," Fulcher said. "She could only speak Mandarin Chinese. We searched all over to find a translator." The on-duty Weehawken officers called the New York Police Department and they found a police officer in the Fifth Precinct, identified as Officer Cheng, who spoke fluid Mandarin. "The officer was able to determine that the woman was part of a 32-person tourist group," Fulcher said. "She remembered the name of the tour guide, but that didn't help. She knew that she had stayed at least one night at a Holiday Inn, so we checked about 25 different Holiday Inns in the area. We canvassed the entire area of northern New Jersey and New York and couldn't find a match. We called all over to see if anyone filed a missing persons report. Again, no luck." So the Weehawken police did their best in trying to make the Chinese visitor feel at home. "She was actually pretty calm and pleasant," Fulcher said. "Officer Brian Mera took care of her and got her some tea and food." The search continues While the woman was being fed and kept comfortable, the other officers were busy trying to find out who she was. "We called the Chinese Embassy, but there wasn't anyone there late at night," Fulcher said. "We called U.S. Customs to see if anyone had reported her missing. We even reached out to the local airports to see if they had plane tickets with her name on it. Again, nothing. We did a lot of phone research." But the identity of the lost Chinese woman wasn't determined throughout the early morning hours. A happy ending A little after 9:30 a.m. the next morning, a very apologetic bus driver named Xin Li, who worked for Mona International Travels, a travel agency based in Fresh Meadow, N.Y., arrived at the Weehawken police station to pick up his lost tourist. "He apparently backtracked and went to every place that the bus had been," Fulcher said. "He was very sorry, but the two were reunited." Fulcher said that throughout the morning hours, the Weehawken police made the woman an honorary police officer, complete with a makeshift badge. "She was very calm throughout the whole ordeal," Fulcher said. "We kept her safe and gave her a couple meals. We had her for about 10 hours, but there was a happy ending." The tourist continued on her tour of the United States with the remainder of her group. Fulcher said that the bus driver was not charged with anything. "It was purely a mistake that they left her there," Fulcher said. "We were happy to help her."
One of my few good cop stories. Of course not in southern cal. This happend in oklahoma city oklahoma. I was there for my cousin's wedding. I was outside the hotel waiting for a taxi. A cop pulled up asked how I was doing. I said fine, just waiting for a taxi. He asked me where I was going. I told him just somewhere to go perhaps a mall or somewhere to read. He said hop in it's just down the way I'll give you a ride. He gives me a lift to the mall. Later around 11pm I was outside a barns and noble book store again waiting for a taxi back to the hotel. Same cop came pulling up and asked "waiting for a taxi again ? " I said yes. He chuckled and said "hop in I'll give you a lift". A cop but also a real person. No attitude, no God complex, just a regular joe. Unfortunately that kind is rare in southern cal. Most down here are scuz bucket cops that think they walk on water. We have good cops too but they are vastly outnumbered by scum.
I went home on leave to hang out with a friend that was getting married. A bunch of us took our shotguns and a few cases of beer out the lake as usual. We stopped shooting and started drinking around the fire when it started to get dark and not long after a cop car pulled up. The officer rolled down his window and asked if we had any weapons. We said "yes sir" he asked if we'd shot at anybody and we said "no sir." He told us they'd gotten a call from a driver who said someone had shot at his car as he drove by where we were and he had to check it out. Then he told us to have a good night and left. Granted we were in a small town in Texas, but the potential for that situation to escalate was tremendous. I don't even want to think about what could have happened if some cop had pulled up, spotlighted us and started yelling to get on the ground.
I had a somewhat similar situation with my wife. We got pulled over (at night) for a brakelight out, and we we're on our way to visit family and go shooting the next day so we had about 8 guns in the car. When he got up to us, we already had our hands on the dashboard He had me step out and checked my permit, then let us go. I was a bit surprised that he left my wife in the car with all that weaponry (he even had his back to her).
We drove to upstate New York. Uncle delivered us to the city to catch the bus, as we were riding it to Indiana to pick up a friend, then a train to return home. Greyhound was over an hour late, which made us just that late for each of our transfers. Mom doesn't handle stress very well, so when the guy at the last terminal told her that he'd get us "as close as he could" to our destination, she agreed. I remember it being very late. We were the last ones on the bus and, as he stopped the bus, the driver apologized to us. 'As close as he could' get us was a truck stop on the Ohio Turnpike. We sat in a booth at the truck stop. Mom tearfully asking no one in particular "what are we going to do now?" Two state patrol officers, having what I recall as the widest brims I'd ever seen on a hat, approached our table. Mom was just sure that this was the straw that broke the camel's back and we were going to be arrested for loitering. Instead, they asked if we needed help. She told them the tale of our journey to As close as we could get. They took us to the station and got a hold of our friend in Indiana who was able to come and pick us up. I'm sure that they had other things to do, but they took the time to help us instead. My (extra wide brimmed) hat is off to those who protected and served a mother/daughter team lost and alone somewhere on the turnpike that late night. They are (just one example of) my heroes.
A couple of years ago, when ALS was just setting in, I took the dog out into the yard for a "pit stop". Coming up the back steps, my legs gave way and I fell and could not get up. I crawled across the back porch, managed to open the back door (fortunately I hadn't closed it all the way), and somehow got to the doorway between the laundry room and the kitchen before I completely pooped out. I knew that my wife wasn't going to be home for at least four hours, and laying on the floor wasn't particularly appealing, so I managed to pull the phone cord, bringing the phone down on top of me. I then called 911 and explained rather apologetically that I really didn't have an emergency, but I was stuck on the floor. The operator said that she'd send help and asked me to call her back in five minutes if I was still on the floor. About two minutes later, in walked the biggest policeman I've ever seen in my life. He asked me if I was hurt and needed medical attention. I told him no, I'm a former paramedic and I was sure I had no injuries. All I needed is help getting to my feet. "OK" he said, then picked me up like I weighed about 5 lbs. (I'm 6' 0" and 240#) and helped me to my chair in the den. He then made sure everything was within reach, asked me if there was anything more he could do, petted the dog, and left. About a minute later the phone rang. It was the 911 operator checking up on me.
