Early in 2010 a man and his daughter were on the side of the road near Xenia, Ohio, changing a flat tire. They were returning to Indiana from a visit to Maryland when the yawing of the car signaled distress to a tire, which was flapping as the car edged to the berm of the highway. Once safely off the highway, the man engaged the flashers and stepped out of the car to assess the damage. The 22-year-old young woman, having elbowed her 63-year-old father out of the way, was cranking the jack when another car pulled up behind theirs; the driver asked for directions to a town in Ohio. When that car pulled away from the stranded couple, a police car replaced it on the berm of the highway. The officer exited the car, and ironically noted that the couple had a flat. He watched the young lady roll the changed tire toward the trunk and walked to the front of their car, murmuring into his shoulder microphone.
Later in that same year, a woman’s car failed on a Southern Indiana road; her friend, who had been sitting with her dying husband, got the distress call, and drove to her rescue. When the woman climbed from her stalled minivan and started toward her friend’s car, a local police vehicle pulled to a stop on the highway opposite. The officer’s window rolled down and he directed his query to the woman’s friend: “Everything OK?” When told that the woman’s car had stalled and the friend was taking her to a nearby repair shop, the policeman drove away.
According to a recent TV report, a young man on his way to make a pizza delivery had a flat tire. An Indianapolis police officer stopped to help the delivery driver, and after the two of them were unable to change his tire, the police officer strapped the driver into the back of her car and took the man — and his pizza — to his scheduled delivery address.
In Xenia Ohio, the officer turned to the driver of the stopped car after the tire had been replaced and the jack stowed in the trunk. “Let me just run that driver’s license to make sure everything is ok,” he said. In silence, the man handed the officer his license. The officer spoke to someone on his shoulder phone and gave them the information on the license, and after a short time, returned it. In the car, on the way back down the highway, the man’s daughter fumed as she speculated on why the officer would run the license of someone who had merely broken down along the road. In Greenville, Indiana, the man took his friend to the local repair shop to make arrangements for her car to be towed. He then took his friend to the grade school where she taught; she was late, but she had notified her principal that she would be. The man dropped off his friend, then returned to her house to sit by her husband’s bed. In Indianapolis, Indiana, the pizza delivery driver was able to make his delivery with the assistance and service of the officer who had observed his need.
In the first two incidents, there are no known witnesses other than the officers and individuals involved. In the third, there was media and other observers and the service of the officer was lauded on television. None of these incidents represent a general view of, or approach to, service by those who “protect and serve” in our communities, but each of them happened. Two of them happened to me, and I offer them here, without comment.