It sounds like a praiseworthy act of kindness: A teen employee at the Great American Cookie Company takes the order of a police officer inside the local mall, then offers to buy the cop’s cookie with his own money!
Like, what teen thinks to do that? And yet, that’s just what Tami Randolph’s son did.
Tami Kurtz Randolph
The unfortunate thing is that rather than praising the teen for his selflessness and honorable maturity, the person in line behind the officer walked up to the register and said, “Are you going to buy mine too?”
A funny joke, for those who like to get a “deer-in-the-headlights” reaction from their humor, but the sad thing is, this customer was NOT joking around.
As Tami details in a Facebook post about the encounter, her son responded to the customer by saying that he’d offered to pay for the police man’s cookie because he was wearing a badge—one that identifies him as a person who sacrifices himself to serve and protect others.
“Then this customer started verbally attacking him, calling my son a racist, & threatened to beat him up. His wife threatened to go back there and slap him. The middle-aged man sat down his little daughter and tried to come behind the counter to attack him. Thankfully his coworker defused the situation. The man then said, ‘I will get you fired.’”
As soon as the man began berating Tami’s son, the teen shut down. He didn’t say hardly anything back, and he simply felt attacked for doing something kind.
Unfortunately the officer had already left, and the only one there to defend her son was his co-worker.