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Hero police officers rescue boy and bring him Chicken McNuggets

Two police officers bought a toddler a hot meal and are being celebrated for their kind gesture. (Photo: Facebook/Paulette Rutter Drankiewicz)
Two police officers bought a toddler a hot meal and are being celebrated for their kind gesture. (Photo: Facebook/Paulette Rutter Drankiewicz)

A photo of two police officers, who rescued a toddler from an abandoned home and bought him Chicken McNuggets, is going viral. The humble cops are chalking up their kind efforts to one simple fact: “We’re dads.”

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, on Friday, Milwaukee police officers Vin Paolo and Dan Resnick arrived at an empty, boarded-up home along with welfare workers to assist a pregnant woman and her 2-year-old son, who were living there with no heat or hot water.

The boy was wearing several coats, and the only food in the home was a bag of potato chips. “But because of his jacket, his three coats, he couldn’t get his hand inside the bag of chips. It was so thick and I actually had to feed him chips,” Officer Paolo told Fox 6.

This is my dear friend. He is a Milwaukee Police Officer. With him is a toddler they found "living" in an abandoned…

Posted by Paulette Rutter Drankiewicz on Friday, October 27, 2017

The officers asked a colleague to buy the boy Chicken McNuggets at a nearby McDonald’s and brought him back to their warm squad car, where he sat on Paolo’s lap and “scarfed it down.”

Resnick snapped a photo of the pair and sent it to Paolo’s wife in jest, because the couple have five adopted children. The photo was then posted to Facebook (with the child’s face blurred out), where it took off, earning 4,600 reactions and more than 2,000 shares.

“I see this officer at work sometimes daily, he does great work!” wrote Facebook user Jennifer Ralston. Added Tina Hotchkiss Pohl, “He is an awesome man….it’s not his first time helping this way….he just keeps doing it….thank you for what you do officer!!!!!”

Paolo’s wife, Mel Williams, chimed in to write of her husband, “He did it because he’s a loving, kind, compassionate, great person with a huge heart. He did it because he’s a dad, and wants every child to feel loved, safe, and have a full belly. He wants ZERO recognition for this. He’d do this for anyone, uniform or not.”

“Co-workers often joke with me as if I’m going to take home every child that I see, and I really wish that I could,” Paolo told WISN-TV.

“It was great. He was, like, playing with my bracelet,” Paolo told Fox 6 of the experience. “My daughter made it for me and I always wear it to work. I was trying to do anything I could to occupy his mind and take it off of what was going on. I know these kids go through a lot of difficult times. I try to make every encounter with the police a good encounter.”

A representative from the Milwaukee Police Department and Paolo’s wife did not return Yahoo Lifestyle’s requests for comment; however, Social Services is helping the mother get back on her feet, and the boy is currently in foster care.

“We don’t want recognition,” Paolo told the Journal Sentinel. “It’s just what we do because we’re dads, we’re people.”

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