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Police officer aiding autistic boy becomes Internet famous

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[Image shows a North Carolina officer coming to the aid of an autistic teenager / Facebook]

Police officers are expected to be brave in the face of danger, but sometimes all that is needed is an empathetic act of kindness to save the day.

Officer Tim Purdy of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department recently used his heart instead of his brawn to help a young autistic man in distress — and the Internet is showing its appreciation.

A photograph of Purdy and the young man in question was posted to Facebook last week, and it wordlessly tells much of the story. The image shows the officer seated on the ground in a parking lot, leaning forwards to listen to a teenager who also sits on the ground. Purdy’s body language appears open and non-threatening, and it looks like the two figures are communicating.

The post accompanying the photo explains what the image cannot:

Thanks to Purdy’s gentle compassion, a potentially dangerous situation was avoided. The heroism of this simple act was not lost to the people Facebook. The post has been liked more than 725,000 times, and the positive comments continue to pour in.

“A beautiful lesson of human comprehension, true dedication to their work, authentic empathy. This policeman is a great man.” Anna Di Leo writes.

At some point the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department must have noticed the sudden spike in their Facebook traffic, because on Tuesday they published a video to Facebook featuring Purdy explaining exactly what happened and why he acted as he did:

“As I got out of the car I was just thinking to myself, how are you going to handle this?” Says Purdy. “The individual sat down, and I just decided, hey, lets try to talk. I got down on my knees and kind of made that eye contact on his level because he was seated and we started talking and went from there.”

It’s hard to disagree with commenter Alex Lautzenheiser, who writes: “He has a heart too. Not just a badge. This is a beautiful story.”