Two Cedar Park Officers Surprise A Man They Pulled Over

The moment drivers notice police signaling them to pull over, ordinarily the heart can start beating more than a few beats faster. Especially if there are three little girls without car seats sitting in the back seat.

For one Cedar Park man his encounter with the police was anything but ordinary.

He’s now thanking the police for their generosity.

It started Oct. 17, when K-9 officer Justin Gower pulled the man over for a malfunctioning light and an expired license. When Gower got up to the car he noticed three young girls, 1, 3 and 4, sitting in the back seat without any car seats, police said.

That’s when Gower realized that he had heard about the same man from another officer, Cale Hawkins.

Hawkins knew that the man had been living in his car to pay for his family to come to Cedar Park on the bus. Since then, the man has saved all of his money to put the family up in a hotel room. After the two officers talked with the man, they learned that the family had been unable to bring the girls’ child safety seats on the bus ride.

Then they were faced with a tough decision. Was it really right to give this man a ticket?

The officers decided to do a good deed instead.

“Giving him three tickets, it wasn’t going to do any good,” Gower told KVUE. “Those kids were still going to have to be driven somewhere, somehow, with no car seats.”

So, as Gower stayed with the man and his family, Hawkins drove to a nearby Walmart, where he used his and Gower’s own money to buy three pink car seats for the girls. When he got back, he and Gower helped install the car seats and sent the family on their way without a ticket.

While it was a small price to pay to do the right thing, when other Cedar Park officers heard about what Gower and Hawkins did, they all pooled their money to cover the cost.

The father, who did not want to be named, gave the police this statement.

“It was nothing short of a miracle. It was something that was really needed. The officers have been a blessing.”

[Photo courtesy of Cedar Park Police]