Here’s your dose of feel-good news for the day.
A routine police stop turned into a wonderful random act of kindness this past week when young father LaVonte Dell was pulled over while driving in Westland, Michigan.
LaVonte was stopped by police officer Joshua Scaglione, who took issue with the tinted windows on his car.
Although when officer Scaglione inspected the vehicle closely, he was alarmed to see LaVonte’s three-year-old daughter sitting in the back without a proper child seat.
As Fox29 reports, Scaglione asked LaVonte “Why isn’t your daughter in a car seat?” Scaglione asked before the young father replied, “I can’t afford it”.
“Okay, I appreciate you being honest,” said Scaglione.
Instead of writing LaVonte a ticket for a driving violation, instead Scaglione had a private word with him. After hearing LaVonte explain that he had to prioritise feeding his family over paying a ticket, the police officer made LaVonte follow him to a local Walmart supermarket.
When there, the police officer bought the struggling father a car seat.
Dell shared a message of gratitude to Facebook after Scaglione’s gift, which has now been shared nearly 6,000 times.
“It was like night and day,” he wrote. “Walkin’ side by side with a white officer.”
“Never judge a book by its cover,” he wrote, adding that there are “some good guys left.”
Scaglione, who was a young father himself, said he was merely “paying it forward”.
“A citation or ticket is not always the solution to somebody’s problems,” he said. “There are other routes we can take by using discretion as police officers to solve somebody’s problem. That’s the road I decided to go.”
The Westland Police Community Partnership then shared a post, commending Scaglione for his approach:
It read:
“As many of you may have heard, we had an incident occur on Monday in which an officer conducted a traffic stop on a car for having tinted windows. While speaking with the driver, the officer noticed that there was a child inside who was not in a car seat. The officer took it upon himself to take the driver to Walmart and purchase a car seat for the child. The officer paid for this car seat out of his own pocket.
“The driver soon after identified himself through Facebook, telling the story of what had happened, and seeking to identify and thank the officer that had done this for him. It was difficult to identify the officer responsible as he had not told anyone about what had happened. It is clear that his sole purpose was to assist the driver, not to receive recognition.
“The Westland Police Department would like to express how proud we are of the officer responsible, Officer Joshua Scaglione.
“We would also like to thank the driver, LaVonte Dell for coming forward and sharing this experience with us. In a world filled with negative stories, the fact that you shared yours has had an unbelievably positive impact on all of us. Thank you.”
