A North Carolina police officer has gone viral after he was recently photographed sharing a pizza with a homeless woman during his lunch break, CNN reported.
29-year-old Officer Michael Rivers of the Goldsboro Police Department didn’t initially plan on interacting with the woman, but he quickly had a change of heart and went on to spend 45 minutes getting to know her and hearing her life story.
On March 11, Rivers was driving through town when he noticed the woman sitting at an intersection.
As a nine-year veteran of the police department, he figured he knew just about every homeless person in the city. But he didn’t recognize her, and her shirt, which read “Homeless. The fastest way of becoming a nobody”, certainly caught his attention.
After exchanging an acknowledging “Hey” with each other, Rivers continued driving, but soon found himself turning around again.
“God put it on my heart to get her lunch,” he explained. “So I turned around and I asked her, ‘Hey, did you eat today?’ And she said, ‘No.'”
After hearing this, Rivers drove to a nearby pizza shop where he picked up a two pies to share with the homeless woman. Then he returned to where she stood on the corner and asked if she would join him on his lunch break.
She agreed, and the two sat down together, eating and sharing stories for 45 minutes.
During that time, Rivers learned a lot about the woman, whose name he learned was Michelle.
Her 12-year-old daughter is currently in foster care and is battling liver disease. She also has a 23-year-old son, and a husband who was stationed just across the street from her, watching as she and Rivers dined together.
Once the two were sufficiently stuffed they parted ways, but Rivers said the interaction has certainly stuck with him.
He told CNN that he feels both officers and homeless people face scrutiny from society, with the former being shunned and blamed for their situations, and the latter portrayed in a negative light, thanks to “bad apple” cops.
“Homeless people are just people who are down on their luck,” Rivers explained. “It can happen to anybody.”
A now-viral photo of the pair during their lunchtime was snapped by a passerby and later uploaded it to Facebook.
“Cassie was out on her lunch break and observed Goldsboro’s Finest enjoying lunch with a homeless person,” user Chris Barnes wrote alongside the photo . “Law enforcement does so much for our community, with a lot of it going unnoticed.”
“We see you Goldsboro P.D,” he added. “Keep up the good work.”
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After the touching photo began circulating online, it caught the attention of Police Chief Michael West.
“The circumstances around our job are often an unpleasant call to service, but this picture just shows we’re human like anyone else and any chance we get to serve the community and help people, we take that chance,” he told CNN . “I’m very fortunate to have Officer Rivers in our department.”
h/t: CNN
