A police officer in Indiana ran into his local Walmart store that he’s visited countless times before when he noticed something amiss about the female greeter at the front of the store. As the officer approached her, he was stopped in his tracks when he took a closer look and saw what she had been hiding in plain sight for months.
Officer Reichle with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department swung by the same store he’s shopped at before but didn’t make it too far into the front door before he realized this trip was going to be different than the others. The greeter, Ashley, had been passed by countless people each day, without anyone happening to notice what was right underneath her until the observant cop stopped and did something about it. Now, fellow store employees are grateful for what he caught.
According to Fox 59, Ashley has worked at the store for a while, never missing a shift, and she is there on time with a smile each and every time she’s scheduled. Behind that smile, she’s hiding what a few employees happened to notice, but they couldn’t do much about.
Ashley is confined to a wheelchair, and despite it being held together with duct tape and had flat tires, she’s never complained about it. When Reichle saw it, he was heartbroken that she was relying on such a dilapidated piece of equipment to get around and reached out for help to his Sergeant, who made a post about it on social media. That’s when they got a surprising response from someone they weren’t expecting.
Officer Santos Cortez saw Sgt. Wilson’s post about the need and had the solution for it in his garage. Cortez was paralyzed on the job when a drunk driver hit his patrol car but hasn’t let it hold him back. In fact, he’s still contributing to the community each chance he gets, and Ashley’s need was no exception when he decided to give her his own wheelchair since he had a spare.
On Thursday, December 8, Sgt. Wilson met with Cortez to get the new chair from him and then had the honor of surprising her with the special gift. “Ashley was overwhelmed with emotions and almost moved to tears at the generosity shown to her by the officers,” the news station reported. Her coworkers were equally as touched since they had tried to raise money to help her with a new chair, but they couldn’t come anywhere close to their goal.
Reichle could have noticed the tape and flat tires and kept walking to get what he needed in Walmart that day, like so many shoppers before him. As a police officer, he thinks differently. When he sees a problem, he wants to fix it — big or small.
Acts of service are just as important to the people he serves, as protecting them and enforcing laws are. Those who don’t help strangers as much as police do, have no right to criticize the profession.
