A South Carolina police officer found a friend in a boy at a local Chick-fil-A last week, shortly after the boy approached him at the restaurant to thank him for his service.
Terence Brister, a Marine Corps. veteran who works as an officer with the Greenville Police Department, wrote in a January 18 Facebook post that he was so touched by the boy’s thank you message that he gave the boy a cookie.
But the boy took his random act of kindness to the next level when he presented Brister with a Chick-fil-A gift card.
Brister then thanked the boy’s parents “for raising a child who loves everyone,” adding that it was moments like the one he experienced that made him proud to serve in law enforcement.
“He is the very reason I have served in USMC, State Police and now City Police. The faith, innocence and love of a child is immeasurable,” Brister wrote in his viral Facebook post, which racked up more than 68,000 shares.
“In a world that’s divided by racial tension, prejudice and discrimination, why can’t adults be more like kids[?] He didn’t see black or white, he saw only a law enforcement officer and who he called a hero,” he added.
Others have conducted random acts of kindness for police officers to thank them for their service.
In September 2016, a Starbucks employee handed out free coffee and food to several New York Police Department officers working overtime to catch the suspect behind an explosion that injured dozens of people.