Trooper's Actions Display Often-Overlooked Compassion Of Police

 This article is brought to you by Dignity Health

Motorists typically cringe when they spot a trooper on the road and cast an eye to their speedometers, hoping they're not driving right into a ticket. Things were a little different for Alabama motorist Raenette Burch as she headed down Interstate 65 recently.

"I was getting off the Prattville exit to go home. As I waited on the light to change, I saw a state trooper pull up to two homeless men asking for food and money," Burch told WSFA. That's a pretty common site on exit ramps across the country, and many motorists are jaded by the sight of scruffy men in tattered clothes wielding "Homeless, Need Money" signs. When she saw a trooper approaching the men, her first thought was that they'd be arrested for panhandling. What happened next restored her faith in human nature.

Instead of getting out his handcuffs, the Alabama State Trooper handed each hungry man a bag of fresh, hot food from McDonald's, shocking a neighboring motorist. .

Seeing this kind gesture, Burch confessed, "It brought tears to my eyes." She was so moved that she actually held up traffic to capture the moment on her camera. She said, "The trooper was unaware I was taking the picture. The faces of the men were priceless."

It turns out that the law enforcement officer in question was Trooper Dee Williams. He was on patrol in the area and stopped to check out two individuals, whom he'd noticed were walking around the exit with signs requesting food or money. In talking with them, he found out they were father and son. Trooper Williams was so moved by their plight that he promptly drove to McDonald's and picked up food for the duo.

For Williams, it was all in a day's work of helping people, and he said the men were very grateful to receive a hot meal. He'd been heartbroken when he learned that they were a father and son going through a tough time and said he simply wanted to assist, unaware that anyone had captured his good deed and made it public.

Alabama Law Enforcement Agency spokesperson Sergeant Steve Jarrett praised the officer's kindness, saying, "We are very proud of him." Obviously, plenty of others who saw the photo on social media felt the same way. It racked up over 4,000 "likes" on Facebook in a single day.

Burch had a simple and sincere reason for posting the photo, to capture a warm moment of humanity in an often-weary world.

"It was a job well done. I just didn't want this kind gesture to go unnoticed. Law enforcement (officers) have hearts too," she said.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, Burch's words ring true. Police officers get national publicity for negative acts like shootings, but many regularly perform random acts of kindness that never get attention. Thanks to social media, they're starting to get credit for helping people. In another example, Alabama trooper, Justin O'Neal, drove a homeless man to McDonald's in the same week that Williams handed out food on the exit ramp. The fast food restaurant was 15 miles away, but O'Neal brushed off praise for his good deed, saying, "As a trooper, our main job is to save lives and protect property, but as a Christian and as a human being that's just the right thing to do."

Compassion from cops extends beyond helping the homeless. Early this year, a Kentucky police officer was called to a Kroger grocery store where a man had been detained for shoplifting. The suspect had his six-month-old baby with him and was stealing formula to feed the little one. According to WKYT CBS, Officer Justin Roby said, "Me citing him for court wouldn't have done any good for him. He's already short on money, can't afford formula, so me making him appear in court, he's still not going to have any food for that baby."

Instead, Officer Roby bought several cans of baby formula for the desperate dad. The store declined to press charges, so he was able to take his young son home and feed him instead of ending up behind bars.

Roby summed up acts of kindness by police officers with a reminder that just because someone wears a badge doesn't mean that he checks his humanity when he pins it to his shirt. "I think when (people) look at us, they see just the uniform and just the car, just the tools that we have on our belt," he explained. "But behind the uniform, I'm a human being and I'm a person out in this community just like any of them. I have a little boy. I'm a father, just like that gentleman was. We're not these robots. There's a human behind the badge."

This article was written by Barbara Nefer via Examiner.com for CBS Local Media.