There's a fine line between right and wrong, and sometimes for the sake of seeking justice, we forget about compassion. These officers share the moment they wished they could've done the "wrong" thing instead of the "right" thing.
(Content has been edited for clarity)
He Was More Than Just A Street Rat To Her
Suzanne Tucker/Shutterstock
“An old roommate was a police officer and once she had a shopkeeper detain a shoplifter.
When she got there it was a young kid, 11 or 12, stealing a carton of eggs and a couple boxes of cereal.
He looked malnourished and unwashed. She eventually got it out of him that he didn’t have food at home.
She called social services, of course, but she asked the shopkeeper just to let the kid go so he could deal with CPS without this added stress or a spot on an otherwise clean record.
The shopkeeper insisted and wouldn’t let up. She didn’t know what happened to the kid after that, but didn’t think it could be anything good.”
He Needed Help, Not Prison
“The most memorable shoplifter I dealt with had some kind of cancer in his leg. He’s a frequent flier for us, and he lives in a tent in the woods.
I responded to a call that a black male with dreads wearing an Adidas hoodie and walking with a limp had just shoplifted from the nearby Shell station. I knew it was that cancer dude. So I rolled up to his tent and I was like, ‘[Guy’s name]! Did you steal a bunch of stuff from the Shell station?’
He popped his head out of the tent, chewing on stolen candy and said he was hungry and he was sorry. This dude weighed about 130 pounds and was in his mid-40s. He took no more than $7 worth of junk food. I went back to the Shell station and paid for whatever he stole and then went back and gave him my business card and told him if he is ever hungry enough to steal something just to call me.
Weeks later I dropped by with some canned Chunky soup but his tent was collapsed, and there was no sign of him. I haven’t heard of him around since, but I like to imagine that he got the help he needed.”
You Can’t Save All The Bad Guys
BortN66/Shutterstock
“I have a couple, one where I wanted to give a guy a break, and I’m glad I didn’t and another where I wanted to give another guy a break and wasn’t able to.
The first one I should preface by saying at this point I worked in an area known for illegal substances and human trafficking. I was driving down a neighborhood road around 3:00 a.m. after some night surveillance. I saw a fire pit in this guy’s front yard; we’ll call him Kevin. The pit wasn’t flaming but had a lot of embers. I know Kevin from my encounters with his family, so normally I’d douse the embers, and I’d warn him the next time I saw him instead of waking him. It was a dry area and embers could start a brush fire. I decided that he had enough warnings in the past, so I knocked on the door. He came and I told him to go snuff out the embers, or I’d cite him. He seemed nervous, and as he was snuffing the embers, I glanced in his home through the open door and saw some backpacks and shoes stacked. I asked him, and he said he found them. I yelled in the house, ‘Is anyone in the house?’ A woman’s voice in strained English said ‘Yes, call police.’ I drew my weapon on Kevin, called back up and cuffed Kevin. My backup arrived, and we found three women and two children in the home. They told us they were being held until the husband of one could pay $3,000. Luckily, that night was the last straw of Kevin’s unattended fires.
The second was with a guy named Martin. Martin had been in and out of jail but had been clean from smack and out of jail for a few years. He got a job as a trucker and had been doing well. One night a truck speeds by me doing 25 mph over the speed limit. I catch up and pull the truck over, and the computer told me it was Martin. As I pulled him over, I heard a newer cop radio in that she was on the way to my location. I planned to read him the riot act about how he could lose his job over a criminal speeding ticket and let him go with a warning. When I got to the truck window, I saw a smack pipe in plain view. I waited to address it though. I honestly thought about telling him to destroy it and cut his crap which is against policy. As I was telling him how he shouldn’t be speeding, the rookie cop came to the other window and immediately saw the pipe, and radioed a K-9 unit. The K-9 unit showed up, had PC to send his dog through the truck and found enough smack to charge Martin with a felony. Martin pleaded guilty and did two years in prison. I felt bad after that one.”
One Ticket Turned Into A “Life-Changing” Event For An Entire Family
Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock
“My partner is a police officer in Australia. One day he pulled over a guy on a motorbike with a young child sitting between him and the handlebars with no helmet. The guy explained that in India where he’d just moved from that was a perfectly normal thing to do, and my partner explained that in Australia it was a big no-no. The guy started getting hostile and disrespectful, demanding that he be let go without a ticket and allowed to continue back home with the kid still on the bike. There were a lot of witnesses and that, coupled with the guy’s attitude and disregard for our laws, prompted my partner to give him a ticket, even though he initially just wanted to give him a warning as he was so new to our country. He also had to chauffeur the kid back to his house.
Hours later, my partner gets a job to go to a domestic violence incident. He recognizes that it’s at the same address he dropped the kid off! He hears there Code 2 and is confronted by the same Indian guy who’s slashed his wrists and is bleeding out everywhere. The guy ended up not dying and had to spend a stint in the psych ward. It turns out that when he got home, his wife had given him a massive tongue-lashing, saying he’d brought shame upon them and the sight of their son being dropped off by a police car with all the neighbors watching was utterly humiliating. She said she was going to leave him and go back to India etc., and the guy tried to end it all as he was so overcome with self-remorse.
Sad all around. Crazy how a small traffic ticket that wasn’t even going to be written out at the start blew up into life-changing events for this family.”
At Least This Police Officer Knew When Compassion Was Needed
LifetimeStock/Shutterstock
“I went to a hanging recently, where a girl found the guy she’d been seeing for two days hanging by the neck. She was traumatized and confided in me that they had both done smack earlier in the day because she wanted the paramedics to know. The dude had a bunch of illegal paraphernalia in his house as well. My boss decided to be thorough, and went through this lady’s bags and found a pipe. She was adamant it had been gifted to her and that she didn’t want it because it had been his. I didn’t want to charge her with having possession because I didn’t think it was in the public interest for a $150 fine when this poor lady’s just seen something that horrific. The boss wasn’t having it and charged her, then made me do the paperwork. I wasn’t thrilled.
I also was on a shift once when my colleague got out the car to speak to a driver he’d seen on the phone. Once he’d written the ticket, he asked me to give it to the driver while he wrote his notes. When I gave it to the driver, he said, ‘I understand why I’ve got this, but some compassion would have been nice.’ I asked what he meant by that, and he told me he was on the phone to the doctor who is in charge of his dads palliative treatment, and he found out that morning that he only had a few days left. I had to play it off, but I let my colleague know when I got back in the car that I wasn’t happy giving that one out and next time he needs to tell me their excuse first up because I’m not giving out any tickets that I wouldn’t write myself.”
He Literally Saved A Life This Terrifying Night
“Years ago I took a law enforcement class and was told this story by the officer teaching the course.
Around 2 a.m. one night, right before this officer was supposed to get off of his shift, he pulls this lady over, obviously driving under the influence. OBVIOUS. He grabs her license and stuff, and she lives like a block over. It’s late, he doesn’t want to deal with the paperwork and says, ‘Look, I will just give you a ticket if you can get someone to take you and your car home.’ The lady is not having it; she says she had no one; no one could take her.
He continues to ask, pleading almost, feeling almost sorry for this poor woman who he described as an emotional wreck but she doesn’t budge. She says she is divorced, knew none of her neighbors and her 18-year-old son DIED the night before and that’s why she is drinking herself into oblivion.
The officer was stumped. He had no idea what to do, he couldn’t book this lady. He tells her one moment and started heading back to his car; he looks behind him to see her pull something from her bag. He runs back to her as she SLITS HER THROAT with a little knife she pulled from her bag.
He said it wasn’t a bad cut and he was able to stop the bleeding while he waited for the ambulance to arrive. Apparently, that lady called him a few weeks later and had apologized, and said she could never repay him for saving her life that night.”
They Had To Take Away The One Thing That Made Him Happy
“I found a couple of homeless teenagers in a park after dark (which is illegal in my area). They had bicycles and a trailer with them. One of them lied about his name because he had a warrant and I arrested him when I figured out who he was. The second was chill the whole time. He didn’t lie and wasn’t a problem. I was going to cut him loose.
My sergeant showed up and noticed that the park had some graffiti on the tables and accused the chill kid of doing it. The graffiti wasn’t wet. The kid said he didn’t do it but he still had art materials in his bag — some markers and a sketchbook. The Sergeant made me take the markers and book as ‘evidence.’ The kid said, ‘Dude!! That is my only art outlet and the only thing that makes me happy right now!’ The sergeant didn’t care. I had to follow orders. Sometimes the job just sucks.”
“I Felt About Three Inches Tall Writing That Dang Ticket”
sirtravelalot/Shutterstock
“I worked third shift for a city police department, and I had turned around at the city limits when I clocked a vehicle traveling 80 mph coming towards me. I hit the lights and turned on it. Since I was leaving the city to catch him, and figured this was going to be a pursuit, it was policy to advise dispatch what was going on.
I grabbed the mic, ‘(badge number) Dispatch I just turned on a vehicle traveling 85 Eastbound out of the city’….. Stop the car, and it’s a soldier, still in BDU’s that had just got back from Iraq or Afghanistan (I can’t remember) THAT day and was headed home to see his family.
I did not want to write that ticket, and I had told him I didn’t want to write that ticket….. since I’d said that on the radio though, I had to write it. I told him to come to court, and I’d do what I could to get it dismissed. I talked to the judge, and at traffic court, he dismissed the ticket and thanked him for his service.
I felt about three inches writing that dang ticket.”
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
ChiccoDodiFC/Shutterstock
“At the time, I was US Military Police, stationed in Grafenwoehr, Germany. The soldier in question was living in an off-post housing area, in which the Germans and the US both have jurisdiction. The Polizei were conducting random stops, as they have the right to do so since it was New Years.
The soldier’s neighborhood was having a party. He witnessed a female at the party being harassed and verbally abused by her husband. He tried to intervene but the husband wouldn’t back off. All the MPs were tied up. He tried calling a cab, and no one was available. And everyone at the party was blitzed. So despite having had a few drinks, he took it upon himself to just drive the woman back to her home, on the other side of the neighborhood.
In that short distance, he got pulled over by the Polizei and arrested. Essentially it was all just a good deed gone wrong.
Since the soldier was compliant, and not stumbling around acting like a fool, he was not charged on the German side of things. They simply brought him to the MP station and let us handle it. The charge remained on his record, but he was not demoted or barred or anything since he could prove that he’d exhausted all options before choosing to drive.
He wanted to write a statement about it long before he waived his rights. Even after being advised he kept talking and told his story. Everything he was saying would’ve gone in my report anyway, so higher-ups suggested it would probably just be in his best interest to write out the full story, instead of getting it piecemeal in my paperwork. He was clear and articulate, with no outward signs of being wasted.
They didn’t walk to the woman’s home because it was a housing development. Her house was on the other side, a good mile walk or so. It was New Year’s Eve and cold. The MPs were tied up, and a cab couldn’t get to them for another two hours. The woman didn’t drive because she’d had far more to drink than the soldier had. I’m not sure what came of her husband.”
They Should’ve Been Punishing His Girlfriend Instead
fizkes/Shutterstock
“Plenty of times, but one, in particular, stands out. My partner and I respond to a call of a domestic incident, and the female caller states her husband threw her into the dresser and broke the bathroom door.
So we get there, and as we are walking up the driveway, this woman comes screaming out wearing only shorts — no shirt, no bra. Anyway, we prepare for the worst, figuring he was going to follow her and come after her. Well, we keep her outside for a minute, and when it’s clear he wasn’t coming out, we go inside with her. By this time another car arrives with two more cops.
So we go inside and she sits on the couch and covers herself with a blanket. We notice she has a nice bump on her head and elbow. She says her husband just got home after completing two tours in Iraq. He just got home two hours ago. She picked him up from the airport. He gets home, and the first thing he does is take a shower. She says ‘I have no idea what happened. He got out of the shower, grabbed me and threw me at the dresser where I hit my head and elbow, then I came downstairs and called you guys.’
So we go upstairs and find the guy sitting on the bed, with his head in his hands crying. He looks up at us and says, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it.’ Without being prompted, he tells his story.
‘She picked me up from the airport and drove home. I come inside and jump in the shower. When I get out, I knock over the garbage can in the bathroom, and it falls over.’ He went to pick it up and saw inside it was FILLED to the brim with used rubbers. Like a box worth. And he was right; the garbage can was filled with rubbers that weren’t his.
He says he came out and confronted her about it to which she just shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘Oh well, you weren’t here.’ So he grabbed her and pushed her away from him in frustration. She hit the dresser and fell to the floor, running out of the room. He gets frustrated and punches the bathroom door, putting a hole in it.
Well, we had no choice, we had to arrest him. We charged him with assault. I’m not condoning what the guy did, but I understand it. He was off fighting in a war for two tours while his girlfriend was living in his house, driving his car, fooling around with other men in his bed.
The real kicker, when someone gets arrested, there’s automatically an Order of Protection granted (in NYS DV cases anyway). The order stated he had to vacate his home. He had no friends, no family and had to live in a shelter for a number of weeks.
Bumped into the guy a year or so later. No job, no money and he had drinking and substance abuse problems. All stemming from this one incident with his girlfriend.”
He Would’ve Rather Offer A Helping Hand Than A Ticket
Dmytro Zinkevych/Shutterstock
“I was an MP in Germany. I was coming to an intersection and saw a car in the left turn lane that wasn’t moving. I pulled up behind it and turned my light on assuming they were having car trouble. I walked up to the driver’s window and talked to the woman driving, and she told me she didn’t know how to drive a stick shift. I didn’t know how to proceed, so I called my desk sergeant on the radio, and he told me to get her license because she might have restrictions on it.
I walked back to the vehicle and asked for her overseas military license, and she said she didn’t have one. I then asked if I could just get her Stateside license and she told me she didn’t have one of those either. Again, I backed away from the car and asked the DS for guidance. He told me I had to arrest her.
The woman in the vehicle had an infant in the back seat. I was in a marked vehicle – which is not allowed to transport minors. I had to confiscate the woman’s ID and inform her that she had to walk to the MP station with her child and that she was a detainee at that time. I moved her vehicle out of the intersection into a safe area then returned to my vehicle. Her husband was in a school, and she just wanted to get groceries. She couldn’t get ahold of him and didn’t know anyone from his unit to get a ride.”
This Homeless Man Didn’t Even Have Enough Money For This Basic Item
“My friend who is a cop went to a shoplifting call, and the guy was homeless. He said he needed some new underwear and was already wearing it as he put it on in the changeroom and he was hiding under a car. He was forced to take off the underwear and mind you my friend said it was filthy, so the store was forced just to throw it away. My friend felt bad for the homeless guy but had to take him in anyhow.”
PTSD Was His Worst Enemy
PRESSLAB/Shutterstock
“We were getting tons of calls about an individual that had run into a bunch of cars, drove up on the sidewalk, etc. It wasn’t just one call, and there were multiple accidents caused by this guy.
Well, it turns out he was a Gunny Sergeant in the Marine Corps and had just gotten back from combat.
I knew he was struggling and could see the pain in his eyes. All I wanted to do was let him go, and drive him somewhere. The problem is, he had been in multiple accidents, ran over property and everyone in the world was calling.
It was not possible for me to let him go.
Unfortunately, a few weeks later, I checked in on his info and found he had just done the same thing….. again.”
Being Monitored Constantly Means No Second Chances For Some Victims
“Body cameras have changed how we operate, big time. I LOVE them and record far more than policy dictates, but they do diminish our ability to make decisions based on circumstances. For instance, a couple of weeks ago I handled a simple shoplifter. He was homeless and genuinely seemed like a decent guy stealing things he needed to survive. However, the entire encounter was on body camera. How can I justify not taking one shoplifter to jail, then turning around and taking the next? How do I know their circumstances?
Make no mistake that attorneys are requesting our body camera footage for everything we do. The fear of finding discrepancies in how we handle situations is real. There are less ‘breaks’ given now, and if you give one, it better be consistent to everyone who violates the same law.
In the end, I still prefer to record everything and will take that loss of discretion over getting sued.”