WATCH ABOVE: Corporal Che Atkinson has worked as a police officer in Prince George’s County for eight years, but most don’t know his name. That would change after his act of kindness was posted on the web. Ellison Barber reports.
Good deeds sometimes go unnoticed but when a Maryland police officer used his own money to keep a homeless mother and baby off the street – people certainly took note.
An unidentified woman, with her one-year-old daughter in tow, arrived at a Hyattsville police station Wednesday asking for help. She explained that she had recently escaped an abusive home. She was homeless and staying in a shelter and felt she had run out of options.
Corporal Che Atkinson claims to have spent the morning contacting a social worker for assistance and even reached out to a distant relative. But when he arrived for his shift the next day, there was the woman again, sitting in the same spot he’d left her.
“I was like did she come back this morning?” he explained to WUSA9. “And the other officer says ‘no I think she’s been here all night.’”
That’s when Atkinson learned the woman and child hadn’t eaten in days and chose to go above and beyond the call of duty at his personal expense.
“I told her this is what I’m going to find. I’m going to find you a place…I’m going to put you up for the night.
He even tracked down a car seat to fit inside his police cruiser.
“I had the extra money. What would it hurt just to put them up for a night to make sure they’re safe?”
A colleague at the Prince George’s County Police Dept. snapped a few photos when Atkinson wasn’t looking and helped post those to the department’s Facebook page where they quickly went viral.
But the officer refuses to take any credit. He says other officers do it and it’s ‘not a big deal.’
The post has been liked by over 18,000 Facebook users and shared by more than 3,700 at this writing.
“This is a … a helpless child, so it’s our duty to help those in need,” he added.
Comments