A Pennsylvania police officer, Chuck Thomas of the Homestead Police
Department , picked up the tab for a couple who refused to sit next to
him and his 3 fellow officers at a local diner, Eat n’ Park restaurant
last Friday. Officer Thomas made a post about the incident on his
Facebook page. He said this happened a day after the Dallas Police
shooting. He wrote:
“A male and female were going to be seated across from us, and he said,
‘I don’t want to sit there,'” Thomas said, “which drew my attention, and
we made eye contact, and his body language just told me that he wanted
nothing to do with police.”
“I looked over at him and said, ‘You don’t have to worry about it. We won’t hurt you,'” Thomas said.
A server at the Eat n’ Park, Jesse Meyers, told WTAE-TV:
“He said, ‘No, I’m good. I don’t want to sit there.'”
“A table goes to sit down, and the guy looks over at one of the police
officers and was like, ‘Nah, I don’t want to sit here.’ So they got
moved completely opposite, away from the police officers.” He said,
Thomas told WTAE-TV, “We get stuff like this all the time, and you
brush it off,” but he felt like reaching out after what happened in
Dallas. Thomas said that he wanted to leave the two a note but was
unsure how to go about doing so and then decided to pick up their check
and scribble a message on the receipt. He wrote that he paid for their
dinner and thanked them for their support. He also left a $10 tip.
“What it really came down to was that, ultimately, I just wanted to let
them know that we’ve got to better the relationship between police and
the community,” he said.
“The day after Dallas, it was tight. You could feel the tension in the
air,” Thomas added. “A lot of people did come up to us and thank us and
shook hands and spoke of their sorrow. This was the only negative
experience of the day.”
“Ultimately, we’re here for you,” he said. “This us-against-them
mentality that’s out here — we’ve got to change that. We’ve got to break
that.”
Thomas said that he paid the tab while he was on his way out and that
the server later told him the couple was “thrown back by it” and ended
up “chuckling.”
