Often times, people seek to punish crimes without stopping to wonder why the crime was committed in the first place. An officer arrives at the scene of the crime, arrests the perpetrator, and hauls them off to jail.
That’s their job and what they are trained to do.
However, some police officers go beyond the duty of their job and exercise compassion while enforcing the law.
That’s what rookie Officer Bennett Johns from Maryland decided to do when he got a call about a theft at a local store.
The Laurel Police report that a young mother had purchased some groceries at the store but found that she didn’t have enough for diapers.
So, in an act of desperation, she stole two packs of diapers that cost about $15.
As a police officer, Johns had no choice but to give the woman a citation for theft. She will have to appear in court for a misdemeanor, however, he didn’t haul her off to jail.
Instead, he went above and beyond the call of duty.
According to Laurel Police Spokeswoman Audry Barnes, Johns came from a home with a single mother and sympathized with the mother.
He wanted to help give her children a better life instead of making it harder on them. So he paid for the diapers himself.
“Just out of personal kindness, he decided to go ahead and buy them,” Barnes said. “It speaks to the heart of what community policing is all about.”
Barnes said this was an example of how the department is looking to create relationships with local residents, beyond ones that involve a crisis.
“Though it’s a snapshot of some of the work your officers are doing daily, we still wanted to take a moment to thank Officer Johns for not just fairly enforcing the law, but also showing empathy to an innocent child in a difficult situation,” the police department wrote on their Facebook page.
The police department is now helping to assist the 20-year-old woman in getting services that she needs so she doesn’t “fall through the cracks.”
Johns, who has been on the job for only two months, has gotten a lot of praise since they posted his good deed on social media.
“He is very humble and didn’t do it for the praise, he did it because it was the right thing to do- and we’re so proud of him,” Barnes said.
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