Police1 Staff
PARK CITY, Utah — A video of a Park City police officer teaching a teenage boy how to tie a tie has gone viral on Facebook, with commenters praising the officer for the small act of kindness.
Single mother Christy Carter and her 17-year-old son Jake DeLeo were running late for DeLeo’s homecoming dance when Carter realized neither she nor her son knew how to tie a tie. Fox 13 reports that, while Carter drove them both to her friend’s home with the hope that someone there could tie her son’s tie, she didn’t come to a complete stop at a stop sign and was pulled over by officer Mark Carillo.
“I’m feeling like, A) I didn’t know how to tie a tie to help him, and B) I now am adding to his stress,” Carter told Fox 13.
When Carillo approached Carter and DeLeo, he could sense something was off with the teenager.
“(DeLeo) was upset,” he told the publication. “And I didn’t think that giving his mom a citation was going to help issues any.”
Instead, Carillo and DeLeo stepped away from the car as Carillo began an impromptu tie-tying lesson. In a video taken by Carter and later shared online, she tells her son “it’s not every day” a cop helps someone prepare for a high school dance.
https://www.facebook.com/Purposewithpassion/videos/10220904111134235/
Carillo didn’t know at the time that this was a valuable moment for a stressed single mother and her son. After the video of his good deed went viral, he told Fox 13 he realized the impact his good deed had.
“To make an impression on someone’s life, I’m always wanting to help people,” Carillo said, according to the report. “So it hit home for me.”