Elderly Ontario man pawns wedding ring for groceries, charitable police buy it back

An amazing story of neighbourliness, charity and altruism recently came out of a small Ontario town this week, offering the country a shining example of community policing done right.

The incident occurred in Cornwall, Ont., where officers were recently called to a home on a suspected domestic violence incident and instead found an elderly man and his sick wife struggling so much to makes ends meet that he had pawned his wedding ring.

The officers responded by collecting money to purchase the couple some groceries and buy the husband’s ring back.

The story, which has since been picked up by international media, was first reported in the Cornwall Seaway News.

The couple has been married for 54 years and, with his wife suffering Alzheimer’s, the husband was having trouble putting food on the table.
He sold several household items and eventually had to part ways with his wedding ring.

It was surely a tough decision. Which is why it was so heartening to learn that the officers called to the domestic disturbance collected $150 to buy groceries for the couple and another $130 – enough to buy the wedding ring back from the pawn shop and return it to the husband.

The moment went unnoticed, publicly at least, until a local councillor commended them during a council session this week.

"This really shows that our officers have a heart," said Coun. Andre Rivette, according to the Seaway News.

And the kicker? The officers involved do not want a stitch of personal attention.
According to the Hamilton Spectator, those involved have declined to be recognized.

"They felt this was nothing out of the ordinary. We see these kinds of things more often than you would think," a Cornwall police spokesman told the newspaper.

It is a beautiful sentiment: Actual, honest altruism. And it’s a case that should rightly stand up as an example of community policing done right.

Police forces across the continent have been the subject of bad publicity recently, from clashes that have shut down U.S. cities, to more local trials involving Toronto G20 officers, public shootings and brusque exchanges with the public.

“What do we see? We see police officers breaking doors down, we see SWAT teams and tactical units going in,” Carleton University criminology professor Darryl Davies recently told Yahoo Canada News.

"For me, policing has to be what the community wants the police to do and that is provide a service."

The Cornwall police have shown an example of what real policing is. They were called to what appeared to be a standard domestic disturbance. When they found there was no need to protect, they instead served.

And in reality, they are not alone.

Earlier this week, Sandasha Ferguson – a school safety officer in London, Ont. – decided to produce a music video about bullying, in an effort to improve conditions for the students she serves.

The list goes on, from those who would do something as simple as the Toronto officer who stooped to tie an elderly man’s shoe to those passionate enough about justice to pause and explain – on camera – the justification of a physical arrest.

And if you expand the search for acts of police kindness further, you find countless other moments of compassion, from the Kansas officer who gave an elderly woman a Christmas ham to the Michigan officer who bought a struggling mother a car seat rather that issue her a ticket.

In Cornwall, the Alzheimer’s Society and the Champlain Community Care Access Centre have since stepped in to provide more assistance to the couple.

But it would never have gotten to this place without the help of those big-hearted officers. It shouldn’t be a surprise that police officers are among the best of us.

It’s just nice to see it in action.