Yuma police officer’s good deed goes viral
Negative Facebook post morphs into positive story
A good deed Monday by a Yuma police officer has gone viral, even getting a “like” from the nationally syndicated television show “COPS.”
Someone posted photos on Facebook that showed Yuma Officer Aaron Goodrich buying shoes at a local store while in uniform.
The post was intended to be negative, with someone questioning whether it was OK for officers to run personal errands on taxpayer money.
When the post was brought to the attention of Sgt. Lori Franklin, however, she decided to share what was really going on in the photos.
Franklin shared the post on the Yuma Police Department’s Facebook page, with the following note: “The Rest Of The Story ........ This picture appeared on Yuma Chat today and I’d like (to) tell the rest of the story. Officer Goodrich was dispatched to a loitering call at Yuma Mesa Shopping Center. He made contact with a homeless man and noticed his shoes were off. The shoes were pretty much worthless to cover his feet and the soles had holes in them. When the call was finished, Officer Goodrich asked the man his shoe size and went to the Goodwill store and bought the man a pair of shoes. Officer Goodrich went back to Yuma Mesa Shopping Center, found the homeless man and handed him the shoes.”
Within moments, her response had drawn thousands of commenters from around the country who praised the officer for his actions.
“A large majority of the comments were very supportive,” Franklin said. “People from all over the country were commenting. I saw one on there from
Maine and another from Alabama.”
Since then the post has been seen nearly 280,000 times, received more than 3,500 likes and shared over 1,000 times. It has also generated 793 comments.
Goodrich told the Yuma Sun the homeless man wasn’t wearing any shoes and was sitting in the shade in front of one of the businesses trying to stay cool.
“I knew who he was because I have spoken to him many times before, and it has always been for something like this,” Goodrich said. “He has always been respectful and compliant. I’ve never had any issues with him.”
Goodrich said during his conversation with the man he couldn’t help but notice that his shoes were worn out. That particular day the temperatures had also been in the triple digits.
“His feet were bruised and blistered, just really all red,” the 28-year-old Goodrich said. “The soles of his shoes were worn through to the point that his feet were actually making contact with the ground.”
When the call was finished, Goodrich asked the man his shoe size and went to the Goodwill Store, where he bought him a pair of size 11 shoes. This is when the pictures from the social media post were taken.
“I happened to have the time to do it because I hadn’t been dispatched to anything yet,” Goodrich said.
When Goodrich went back to take the man the shoes, he was no longer there. He eventually found him a short time later walking along 3rd Avenue.
After Goodrich gave him the shoes, he said he even offered to let the man sit on the tailgate of his vehicle to put them on, but he politely refused.
“He said he wanted to clean his feet before he wore them,” Goodrich said. “But I’m pretty sure he was happy to have them.”
Two days later, on one of his days off, Goodrich said he saw the man again, and he was wearing the shoes.
Goodrich said he doesn’t think he did anything special, adding it was just part of the job and something other officers do all the time.
“I see officers helping people on a daily basis,” Goodrich said. “It is just part of what we do.”
As for the negative social media post, well, Goodrich has a simple explanation for that also.
“It was a simple miscommunication,” he said.