Routine shoplifting call turns out to be an opportunity for a police officer to help a man



YORK, South Carolina -- A routine shoplifting call turned out to be an opportunity for great compassion for a South Carolina police officer.

Nothing in Lt. Keith Willis' job description as an officer with the York Police Department calls for him to do what he did on December 1st.

A man was allegedly trying to walk out of a Walmart store wearing a pair of $22 tennis shoes he didn't pay for. The law says that's shoplifting.

But Lt. Willis' heart told him something else.

"He realized what he was doing -- but he felt like he didn't have a choice, I thought at that time," Lt. Willis said.

The man had just gotten out of jail after a six-month stay on traffic charges. He was trying to get home to Clover, South Carolina with only a pair of flimsy jail flip-flops.

"We went through the booking process and everything. I realized that he was just trying to make a choice between getting in trouble and walking all the way to the next town with no shoes," Lt. Willis said.

The law doesn't bend in these types of situations.

The heart, however, does.

"I made a phone call to my wife, and she runs the homeless outreach ministry with our church. I told her, I asked her to put one of our kits together and to check and see if we had some shoes and some jeans," Lt. Willis said.

In a parking lot, after the man was released from custody, Lt. Willis gave him a whole bag of clothing -- including a pair of shoes.

"He's like, 'I don't understand. You're a police officer. You just arrested me for shoplifting and now you're helping me. I don't get it.' I just told him that 'I felt like God led me to help you, and that's what I'm doing,'" Lt. Willis said.

Lt. Willis hopes that instead of just arresting a man, he was able to give him the shoes that will help to put him on a new path in his life.

He says he hopes what he did will help others to understand that police officers are people too.