Today being a police officer can not only be a dangerous profession but also a thankless one. The myth of police waging a campaign of violence against black people perpetrated by far left groups like Black Lives Matter and happily spread by the liberal media has done a lot of damage. It has created a high level of fear among blacks resulting in undeserved distrust and even hatred torward law enforcement.
If there is a story about police in the papers, on tv or the internet it will almost certainly casts law enforcement in a negative manner. A ‘good cop’ story usually doesn’t get nearly as many readers, viewers or clicks as a negative one does. But here is one that has already inspired thousands and gives us a much truer picture of how police officers actions can impact other people’s lives in a positive way.
In March of this year a picture was taken of a North Carolina State trooper during a traffic stop. The trooper is leaning through the passenger window clutching a Black man’s hand. The man’s back is pressed against the seat, his eyes are squeezed shut and he appears to be wincing in pain. The picture was taken by the man’s daughter who was driving the car. It spread across social media after the death of her father on May 22.
This doesn’t sound like a ‘good cop’ story at all. It sounds like something that defund the police activists would use to stir up more division and ignite riots. This is why it is so important to do a little investigating before jumping to a hurtful false conclusion. As it turns out the photo wasn’t posted to cause trouble for the police. It was shared for a completely different reason. The trooper was actually reaching into the car to help, not to hurt.
Their chance meeting took place on the afternoon of March 28. The trooper, Jaret Doty of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, pulled over a 2016 silver Volvo on Interstate 85 in Rowan County for speeding. The car was driven by 39-year-old Ashlye Wilkerson. She had picked up her father, Anthony “Tony” Geddis, who had just completed a round of chemotherapy at Duke University Medical Center, and was driving back home in Columbia, South Carolina.
The blue lights and siren had freaked out Ashlye and her father was trying to calm his daughter as they pulled over on the shoulder anticipating the bad news to come. Sadly, to many Black motorists, there is no such thing as a routine traffic stop.
The stocky trooper of 17 years asked Ashlye for her license and registration as her mother and two daughters looked on in fear of what was to come. That’s when Geddis, weak from his treatment, politely defended his daughter and told the cop what they had been doing.
Doty walked back to his car with the license and registration and sat there for a long time thinking. This worried the family even more. But by then the officer knew he couldn’t give Ashlye a ticket and his thoughts had turned to a time when he himself had faced death from cancer. While recovering from surgery in the hospital, Doty thought of all the people who had prayed for him and made a vow that if he could help one person get through their illness, that he would.
He walked back to the car with an unexpected request of the family.
“Can I pray for you?” Doty asked. Geddis agreed and responded, “I absolutely believe in prayer.”
Geddis raised his hand and grasped Doty’s. At that moment Ashlye was so touched by what she was seeing that she took out her smartphone and took the picture.
After the prayer, Doty put a small silver cross in the sick man’s hand and left without giving out the speeding ticket. It was one of those small moments in life that leaves a massive impact. On their way back home, Ashlye saw how moved her father was by the kindness shown to them by the trooper.
Two months later, on May 22 her father died. Ashlye later wrote about the encounter with the trooper on social media and posted the picture. Though she didn’t have the officer’s name, she publicly thanked him. Her post soon gathered attention on LinkedIn and spread to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as people reposted the image and the story behind it.
She has received more than 4,000 comments from a wide cross-section of people, many of them saying how the traffic stop had restored some of their hope in law enforcement.
And then news of the story reached Doty. He was blindsided. He didn’t know what had happened to Geddis, or that a photo had been taken of their meeting. He said he often prays for people he stops but that he knew that this was different.
“I can’t describe the odds of stopping her, because there’s hundreds of thousands of cars that travel through (Interstate) 85 every week,” he said. “And this was the first and only time that I ever verbally requested and prayed for somebody out loud on the interstate.”
Ashley said that the cop could have acted differently- yet he choose humility and faith after pulling her over.
“He could have given the ticket, not asked questions, not connected with us in faith, but he did,” she said.