'Soft' Cop Goes Above and Beyond Call of Duty To Help Woman Instead of Issuing Her Speeding Ticket
When a cop catches someone speeding on Halloween, there are several possible — and suspicious — reasons for the infraction that come to mind.
Generally those reasons don’t involve diapers, but Jeanette Porter of Washington County, New York, was on a diaper run on Halloween when she saw the dreaded red and blue lights.
“Well, I was speeding, I deserved the ticket,” she said, according to WTEN-TV. “You know, ‘It is what it is,’ I totally understand.”
But when K9 Handler Deputy Dale Quesnel walked up to her window and began chatting with her, her story was … unusual.
“I encountered her speeding,” he said. “I pulled her over and talked with her for a minute to see why she was speeding.”
“I asked her where she was heading to. She told me she was getting diapers for her twin nieces.”
Not even for her own child, but for her nieces. She knew a local food bank was giving them away and was hurrying to get there before they were all gone.
Seeing the predicament she was in, Quesnel decided not to give her a ticket — one that she knew she deserved — but decided to give her something else.
“I just got to thinking she didn’t seem like she could afford a traffic ticket, so I didn’t think she could afford diapers either,” he explained.
So he asked her to go to the store with him.
“Why don’t you stop at the dollar store and why don’t you let me buy them some diapers?” he said.
The shift in tone and purpose shocked Porter, but she accepted and was able to get supplies for her family after all.
“Deputy Dale showed me so much compassion,” Porter said. “Not only did he not give me a speeding ticket — which I definitely deserved — but he spent his own money to buy diapers and wipes for my nieces.”
“Thank you for being so nice and generous, and compassionate,” she added in a later message. “It just shocked me. I just couldn’t believe that a cop would go above and beyond.”
It seems Quesnel has a knack for surprising the people he comes into contact with, and he brushed off the recognition by saying he was “soft.”
“I guess I’m a soft cop, I don’t know … I like to help people out,” he said, chuckling. “I’ll help her or anybody.”
“I’m not rich, I live like just about everybody else, but I like to help people.”
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