by Kassandra Lamb
(public domain, Wikimedia Commons)
Memorial Day is about honoring the men and women in our armed services, especially those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. We at misterio press, despite being wordsmiths by trade, find that words are not always sufficient to express how much we appreciate all members of the military for all that they do and all that they have given up in order to keep our country safe!!
This Memorial Day I’d also like to honor another type of hero who serves his/her community every day to keep it safe. The good cops out there!
Do you ever feel like we only hear about the bad news? I sure do. Certainly there are lots of bad things for the media to zero in on, but sometimes people get it right. And it seems like we don’t hear nearly enough about those times.
For example, I didn’t know until recently about something wonderful that is happening in my own town. Oh, I’d heard about the original “good deed” when it happened, but I hadn’t heard about what came after.
Here’s what happened first:
At 5:31 p.m. on January 15th in 2016, a noise complaint call in a neighborhood near my house was answered by Officer Bobby White. Some kids were playing basketball in the street.
Officer White used it as an opportunity to connect with these kids. Instead of scolding them, he shot a few hoops with them, before telling them to “try not to be too loud” and to “have fun.”
The video from his dash cam went viral and guess who saw it, Shaquil O’Neal. So the Shaq shows up at the police department to surprise Bobby White, and then they all went to the neighborhood and surprised the kids.
Awesome, right? Well here’s the rest of the story.
To show their support, people started sending basketballs and hoops to GPD. Folks were calling Bobby White the “basketball cop” and media outlets were hounding him for interviews.
And that gave him an idea. He’s kind of a humble guy and really wasn’t into all the attention, but he decided to use it to help kids even more.
So he started The Basketball Cop Foundation.
Here is part of their mission statement:
The Basketball Cop Foundation’s mission is to connect Law Enforcement agencies across the country with the kids in their communities. This will be accomplished primarily by supplying the agencies with sports equipment. The recipient agency will then in turn donate the equipment to groups of kids in their community through their Patrol Officers. Not only does the initial donation of the equipment open the door to new relationships, but it gives the Patrol Officers in those areas a place where they know they can interact with kids on a regular basis and continue to build on those relationships.
Beyond supplying sports equipment, the foundation would also fund Police/Youth community events, Police/Youth sports tournaments, and fund the renovation and building of basketball courts in apartment complexes, parks, churches, etc.
In their first year, they sent out balls and hoops to 28 police agencies around the country and built 3 basketball courts in our town, including one in the backyard of Tyree, one of the boys in that original group of kids. And a Harlem Globetrotter came to town to help christen the court!
If you watch the video through to about the midway point, you’ll see #HoopsNotCrime stenciled on the goal post. For some reason, that gave me goosebumps!
Way to go, Officer Bobby White! So proud of you and Happy Memorial Day!!
Do you have any home-grown heroes like Bobby in your town? Feel free to brag on them in the comments.
Posted by Kassandra Lamb. Kass is a retired psychotherapist turned mystery writer. She is the author of the Kate Huntington psychological mysteries, set in her native Maryland, and the Marcia Banks and Buddy cozy mysteries, set in Central Florida.
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