PORTLAND, Ore. - Portland police officers served up a special delivery after a Pizza Hut driver was injured in a car crash earlier this month. Steve Huckins said he and his wife didn’t know what to expect when the officers showed up at their front door…. “My first thought was ‘why are they here?’ Because there was never a reason for police to come to my house,” Huckins told KGW. Earlier that evening, Huckins got a call from Pizza Hut letting them know their driver had been in an accident and they would deliver another pizza. The pizza delivery driver was hurt, but expected to be OK, Huckins said…. “We were sitting there finishing our pizza, and there was a knock at the door,” said Huckins. “We looked at the security camera and saw a cop car.”…. He opened the door, and the officers handed them their pizza.
Police don’t have the most sterling of reputations these days, and the Portland Police Bureau is no different in that respect. Over the years, PPB has had its issues with mentally challenged citizens (see Chasse, James), and like most police departments, its relationship with the African-American community is tenuous. It’s easy to forget that being a policeman is a tough job, and that those wearing the uniform are people, as flawed as the rest of us. While Portland isn’t inner-city St. Louis or Philadelphia, it can be anything but a picnic at times. which is why I found this story so refreshing. In a time when stories of police abuse and overreaction are as common as Jimmy Fallon lip-synching (and yes, sometimes policemen can be dicks), it feels nice to be reminded that policemen aren’t uniformly overbearing authoritarians with a boner for power and control and a tendency towards racism.
No, we don’t pay our police officers to deliver pizzas…abut sometime you just have to go above and beyond, knowhutimean?
The next time you order a pizza and answer the knock on your door to find two Portland policemen handing over your extra-large pepperoni with extra cheese and onions…it might not be because there’s a warrant out for your arrest. ‘Course, if there IS a warrant out for your arrest, that might be the reason behind the full-service pizza delivery, knowhutimean??
