Officer buys diapers and shoes for homeless mother caught shoplifting for her kids

Here’s a happy story....

When Roeland Park police officer Mark Engravalle was dispatched to a local Wal-Mart after a woman was caught shoplifting on Monday, he could have treated the incident like any other petty theft.

Source

But he didn’t. After talking with the woman, the officer had learned that after the drowning death of her husband, she was left to raise six young children by herself.

They had been living out of their car after his death and out of desperation, she attempted to steal baby wipes, shoes and diapers from the local Walmart. The officer noticed some of the children were barefoot with dirty feet and decided to take matters into his own hands.

He went back inside of the Walmart she had been caught stealing from and purchased the stolen items for her and her family. He spent roughly $300 dollars of his own money and issued a citation for misdemeanor theft, while declining to arrest her.

I’d say he would have a pretty tough time living with the idea of taking mom away and forcing her children into protective custody, so he found a happy medium and set an example to the rest of the world.

“The officer had two children of his own, and he thought of his two kids,” Roeland Park public information officer John Demoss told ABC News. “He thought it was the right thing to do.”

Not only that, the officer had received an award earlier that year for saving the life of an infant who was choking. Some will say he was just doing his job, but he sounds like a pretty stand up guy. After the local news ran the story, many more began to take notice. Numerous people had called the station asking what they could do to help and a local radio station raised over $6,000 dollars for the family.

It can be said not all cops are good and not all cops are bad, but there is a schism currently between us and them. We are predisposed to fear their presence as they are to ours. Seems like everyone is labeled a threat these days without knowing the whole story or allowing the officer to at least attempt to do his job correctly. Imagine if the woman started going off on a tirade after being caught, escalating the situation and likely causing the officer to take different measures.

Officer Engravalle should be commended for using his better judgment, while avoiding the scripted robotic arrest protocol. Did the woman deserve these items? I’m not really sure, but her children should not be forced to suffer. At the very least, this should serve as an example of civility and an exercise in good moral judgment. Not to mention making the police look damn good in the process.

Well done to him. Job done and helped a family out.

Not much else needs to be said I wouldn't think.

I'm sure some will disagree though

a reply to: eisegesis


Cool !!!!

The moral to this pleasant story is. When you find yourself in a moral dilemma let your heart lead you .

S&F thanks for posting .

What sickens me is this lady and her children are homeless having to resort to theft and Im betting that this Walmarts dumpsters have many discarded,slightly out of date, items that could be easily donated to help people get back on their feet.

I watched a guy this week empty an entire drink machine and throw about 30 cans of drinks in the dumpster because he said they were just past their sale date. As soon as he walked away I removed them and put them in the fridge at work. No one there cared they were out of date.

We throw away so much in this country! No one should have to be without!

originally posted by: TheLieWeLive
What sickens me is this lady and her children are homeless having to resort to theft and Im betting that this Walmarts dumpsters have many discarded,slightly out of date, items that could be easily donated to help people get back on their feet.

I watched a guy this week empty an entire drink machine and throw about 30 cans of drinks in the dumpster because he said they were just past their sale date. As soon as he walked away I removed them and put them in the fridge at work. No one there cared they were out of date.

We throw away so much in this country! No one should have to be without!

Absolutely true.

At work we have vending machines that contain fresh food. The food is not very nutritious or appetizing, but like you said, the guy would show up and throw out still perfectly good food into our trash because of the expiration date.

I managed to strike a deal with him. He said he couldn't hand them to me directly, so I provided him with garbage bags and asked him to double bag everything before tossing them.

I would wait until he left and fish them out of the garbage, giving them a good visual inspection before keeping any. I wouldn't eat them, but I used to bring them downstairs into my office and set them up on a table for my staff to come in and take what they like.

More than enough times it put something into an empty workers stomach and helped build a better relationship between me and them. Plus, when my mother owned her own deli, she would save all the cheese ends instead of throwing them away and whip up this six cheese, homemade mac and cheese with Ritz crackers on top that was to die for.

a reply to: eisegesis

What a lazy a$$ copper, couldn't be bothered with the paperwork eh?

No, great story - just goes to show that some cops has heart as well as a brain.

GREAT posting - Star and a flag from me

a reply to: eisegesis

Apparently he didn't fear for his life on this occasion. Many people would do the same thing and they don't hide behind the blue line and wreck the rule of law.

a reply to: TheLieWeLive

yeah man.
if all the store across the country banded together there wouldnt be a hunger problem.
these places waste a ton of #.

my mom worked at a grocery store in the 80's ....in the deli.
she said they threw away a disgusting amount of food and that they did used to give it to people but one person complained cause they 'got sick' and they stopped.

my wife worked at a grocery store last year in the prepared food section. she said right up intill close time the rotisserie had to be FULL of chicken. so a half our before they close they wanted like 30 full chickens in there.
# like that...
think of all the grocery stores alone. all their delis and prepared food sections.
how much of everything they just toss away like nothing.

i really do think all that would could and should be donated.
i get not making stores donate food they would otherwise be selling but if theyre gonna toss it and it is still good then # man.....give it to someone....anyone

originally posted by: InverseLookingGlass
a reply to: eisegesis

Apparently he didn't fear for his life on this occasion. Many people would do the same thing and they don't hide behind the blue line and wreck the rule of law.

See? Guess I was right, sadly.

You're right, many people would. This person did. And didn't hide behind anything, nor wreck the rule of law while doing so.

Haters gonna hate.

and i forgot.
what a dick move buying her food when he could have paid for her iphone bill and bought her some facebook game credits.

think about restaurants too.
these days at a lot of places the portions are gigantic. not everyone takes home a doggy bag.

you know how at stores they always ask you if you want to donate a buck or whatever to this cause or that? a lot of people donate that way. a buck here and there.
what if a restaurant asked something like
"would it be ok if we scaled your portions back by %5 and donated that food"

know what i mean.
if you got a side of mashed potatoes you can probably live with 5% less but at the end of the day they probably would have a LOT of potatoes they could donate.

something like that

a reply to: Mugly

I work in the film industry.

The amount of food that gets thrown away is disgustingly ridiculous: plates of fried chicken less than an hour old from a restaurant, whole loaves of meatloaf, whole trays of pasta salad, veggies, you name it. If it doesn't get eaten (and if it's hot food) it goes straight into the garbage.

That said, that's good of this cop to do that. And he does sound like one of the good ones. I'm just sad that he cited her too. True, he could have arrested her and her kids would have been put into a home or foster care, but he didn't. But he cited her, so now she has to go to court, hope the charge gets dismissed or thrown out due to her hardship, possibly pay a fine (or serve a few days) if it doesn't. She won't be able to afford an attorney, so maybe one will offer services pro bono. Or hopefully the prosecutor and/or judge will be a decent human being and dismiss everything, or a highly reduced sentence.

One can hope.

a reply to: Liquesence

throw all that stuff in the donate pile.
someone else said vending machines with sammys and such.
that too
think about all the places in this country where you can pull a bologna sammy out of the machine?
my new job has one and my old one does too. the dude was there every day rotating stuff out.

seems like the country and probably the worlds hunger problem could be solved by the food we waste alone.

This is a local story about 5 minutes from where I live.

I bitch about cops a lot but I have to admit the cops in our area are great, for the most part we hear more good stories than bad about kc police.

Kudos to this guy and give him a pronotion..

originally posted by: InverseLookingGlass
a reply to: eisegesis

Apparently he didn't fear for his life on this occasion. Many people would do the same thing and they don't hide behind the blue line and wreck the rule of law.

If there is an exception for every rule, I'd say the officer chose the right time to consider this one. Taking her away would've put these children in worse shape, regardless if you think the system would provide them better.

At least they are with their mother and what that cop did was not only good for the community, it hopefully taught those children a huge lesson in kindness. Their futures will be brighter because of it.

It attracted the attention of other do-gooders and she's likely to get back on her feet because of it. Following protocol would have robbed her and her children of that chance.

In this case, the system didn't prevail, the community did. This officers actions became an example of how to help someone in need and others followed. Its what makes the world go round if you ask me. And I could only hope to be treated the same if I was in her shoes.

a reply to: eisegesis

You help when you can and where you can. That's what it's supposed to be about. If more people could step up all around, there would be less need for it to happen.

a reply to: Liquesence

Once a call comes in over the phone/911 system it creates an open file.
The cop/PEACE Officer had to close the file/loop with some type of action.
Luckily, he chose the soft touch approach and only cited her for a summary
offence. This "ticket" helped to close the file until the court date...the cop could
then, for whatever reason, not show up at the court (I bet Walmart would
though) on the right date and the judge can drop the charges.

Nice story and good on that Cop.. Things like this I am sure happen all the time and are not reported. We seem to crave on bad news ! A lot of good is done by a lot of folk all the time.. I try to do at the least one good deed every day whether it is to rescue a spider or help in someway however.. If i was a true magician I would allow that cop to win the lottery as I am sure a lot of more good would be done with his winnings. Star and flag from I..

a reply to: fshrrex

So you're basically staying that whenever a call comes in it HAS to result in a ticket or an arrest for the "loop" to be officially closed regardless of officer's discretion?

I don't buy that for a second because I've seen instances where it has resulted in neither.

a reply to: Mugly

There is no "donate" pile, it doesn't work like that. People (crew) can take it home if they want (and I occasionally do), but most of the time there's no time to package it, take a van to the parking lot, etc because everyone is resting or has to take the van back to the set.

Catering and location are closed locations (and in NO public access), and the caterers, having been there since 3am preparing breakfast, just wanna get the hell outta there. Therefore, into the trash. :/

It sucks, seeing it all go to waste.

But this is getting off topic. I just wish we could give some of this food away or feed people like this mother and her kids, but legally we can't because, as someone mentioned, as soon as one person "gets sick" because we can't keep it at proper temp for long enough after lunch is finished, someone pitches a fit.

I did one show, only one, that took everything left IMMEDIATELY to a shelter, but that is very VERY rare.