WESTFIELD — “These guys and gals go above and beyond,” Westfield Police Capt. Steve Dickinson said about how officers responded when two people recently reached out for their help.
Last month, during the height of the heat wave, a 98-year-old woman called 911 just after 9 p.m., according to the department’s log from June 18. The log reports that she identified herself as legally blind and told a dispatcher that she was alone and needed help adjusting her thermostat.
Minutes later, two officers arrived. The woman told them she called for help because couldn’t see the numbers on the thermostat.
One of the officers made the adjustment and expected the home’s central air conditioner would turn on. When it didn’t, he quickly figured out the home didn’t have one.
The temperature in the woman’s house was 84 degrees, and the two officers decided they couldn’t leave a senior citizen in those conditions. They decided to chip in, out of their own pockets, to buy the woman a window-mounted air conditioner.
But then one of the officers found out he had a family member with an unused window unit. So the next morning, at 7 a.m., that officer, with the help of another officer, returned to the woman’s home and installed the air conditioner.
Asked about the incident, Dickinson commented, “These are the kind of things our officers do, and most folks will never even know about it.”
He also brought up a situation that started on May 22 when the employee of a convenience store in Westfield called dispatchers about a man who appeared to need help.
When officers arrived, they tried speaking to him, but found he could not speak English and was not from the United States. Using a translation service, they learned he had been the victim of a crime, that someone owed him money and that same person had taken his passport.
“He was stranded here,” Dickinson said, who said he couldn’t go into the details of how the man ended up in Westfield because of an ongoing investigation into the incident by state law enforcement authorities.
As the man had no money, passport, or friends or relatives in the area, the department’s officers spent the next five weeks essentially taking care of him, Dickinson said.
Officers chipped in to put the man up at the Elm Motel on Russell Road, and with the help of the community, kept him fed while authorities figured out what to do with him.
“A lot of these officers were taking money out of their own pockets to help,” Dickinson said.
Officers even provided the man a suitcase full of clothes and purchased toiletries like deodorant, toothpaste and a toothbrush, again, using their own money, Dickinson said. And at least three times each day, officers would check in on the man to make sure he was OK.
While the man spent most of his time at the motel, Dickinson said several officers reported seeing him walking around the city.
Because of the language barrier, he said officers would call up pictures on their cellphones to have him point out what he wanted at mealtimes.
“There were a lot of trips to Burger King, he really like their food. And he really liked Coca-Cola,” Dickinson said, adding that the man was extremely polite, courteous and grateful for the help he was getting.
He also said that several city restaurants let officers run a tab on the food they purchased for the man.
The department is still figuring out how to reimburse the officers, he said, but is confident it will.
Last Monday, after authorities gave Westfield Police permission to let the man travel out of state, two officers drove the man to New Jersey, where he will stay with a friend, Dickinson said.
He also wanted to stress that the officers who go beyond the strict call of duty do so without looking for recognition.
“They don’t want it. They do it because it’s the right thing to do,” he said.
This experience did result in some minor changes within the department. Dickinson said that shift commanders have now been provided a reserve of petty cash that can be used as needed to reimburse officers who spend their own money providing help to those in need.
“We’ve had our guys pay for bus tickets for people who needed help getting home,” Dickinson said, adding that these selfless acts show the real spirit of public service.
“These guys just do what needs to be done, showing that the Westfield Police Department is really community-based,” he said.
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