In North Carolina this week, Officer Tim Purdy was dispatched to a high school. He was trying to find an autistic, possibly suicidal boy that had wandered away from his school. The boy also had a history of violent behavior, so the school administrators were particularly concerned with finding him.
When he located the boy, Purdy sat down on the ground with him and started talking to him. Purdy even had the teen laughing at one point.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department had this to say about the incident on Facebook:
“Officer Tim Purdy was dispatched to a situation involving a young autistic high school student who left the campus and may have been suicidal.
Due to the young man’s neuro-developmental disorder, he also had a history of displaying violent behavior.
In order to build a connection with the young man, Officer Purdy sat next to him on the ground, talked things through and even got him laughing.
Officer Purdy established trust and a relationship that allowed officers to get this young man the help that he so desperately needed.
There’s more to policing than making arrests and enforcing the law. Sometimes taking those extra little steps makes the biggest difference in someone’s life.”
The police department wanted to show that police do a lot more than arresting people.
We do not know the exact circumstances that led to the boy leaving school or what the scene looked like when Officer Purdy arrived.
The Facebook post has gone viral. It has been shared over 200,000 times and it got about 25,000 comments on Facebook. The comments were mostly positive; many parents of autistic children praised the Officer for handling the situation so well. There were also comments appreciating police officers being portrayed in a positive way.
I’m glad that there are great policemen like Officer Purdy.
For more on this story, see the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR6nq44I8I0
Featured image via Facebook.
