iStock(SAVANNAH, Ga.) — Officers from Savannah, Georgia, pulled over a young mom for driving without a license plate — but ended up engaging with her and her kids in a way that gave her “a completely different outlook on police,” the department said.
When officers on Friday night stopped a car that didn’t have a license plate, they also found 1-year-old twins who weren’t in proper car seats, according to the Savannah Police Department.
“The mother was only 21 years old and had her original vehicle stolen recently, hence the no license plate,” the department said in a Facebook post. “She had also just started a new job.”
The officers decided to buy her new car seats, and while Cpl. Steve Bland went to the store, Officers Austin Neumann and William Daniels kept the children entertained, police said.
The kids were crying and scared, so “I kind of leaned down next to a little boy. He just turned right to me and wanted to be picked up,” said Neumann, who’s seen in this photo first posted to Facebook by his wife.
“And that was it — we were just best friends after that,” Neumann said. “He didn’t want to be let down.”
“The boys just really, really took a liking to the officers, so much so that when the interaction was over … the boys just did not want to let go,” Savannah police spokeswoman Bianca Johnson told ABC News.
Neumann said it’s important for the public to know that police aren’t looking to “harass” or arrest drivers — officers are there to help keep communities safe.
“She was very thankful,” he said of the young mom.
“They go above and beyond for kids all the time,” Officer Neumann’s wife, Kelsey Neumann, said of her husband and his colleagues. “I didn’t expect anything less from them.”
“You could tell that that not only touched the hearts of the officers and the boys, but the mother,” Johnson said. “With the way some attitudes are toward police, those interactions are really priceless.”
After the officers installed the car seats, “the mother drove away with a completely different outlook on police,” the department said on Facebook.
And Kelsey Neumann called her husband’s actions good practice — the Neumanns’ first child, a daughter, is due in January.
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