Seventeen-year-old Jamal Rutledge has been in trouble a lot in his young life, and chances are he still has some difficult issues to sort through in his life.
But in a reminder that we shouldn't write anyone off, or think there is nothing redeeming in a person who is on the wrong track, Rutledge is now being honored by the Fort Lauderdale City Council for something he did on the very day he was arrested for burglary. And rightly so. Because Rutledge's booking officer had a heart attack and collapsed in the booking room - and Rutledge acted quickly to save his life.
The surveillance video here is very slow moving and extremely long, but the part you want to see starts at about 37:55 and lasts maybe four or five minutes:
The stricken officer is 49-year-old Franklin Foulkes. Once Rutledge managed to alert the other officers, despite being handcuffed, they ripped off Officer Foulkes's shirt and other job-related equipment and managed to restart his heart using a defibrillator. Officer Foulkes is expected to recover fully and resume work by the end of the month, and all four officers - plus Jamal Rutledge - are being honored by the City Council during an upcoming meeting on January 21.
I love this story. Absolutely love it. It doesn't mean Jamal Rutledge won't have to pay a price for what he did. The burglary was a probation violation among other things, and he's had multiple arrests. So he has some serious issues to work out in his life. But what it shows is that people who find themselves averse to each other for whatever reason can still appreciate each other's humanity and value it.
A lot of criminals would see the booking officer's collapse as an opportunity to attempt an escape. A lot of criminals would shoot a cop if it helped them to avoid arrest. Whatever issues Jamal Rutledge has in his life, he is a decent enough human being to care for the life of the man who was arresting him.
That's a good start. That's a really good start. Pray that this virtue becomes the building block that determines the kind of man he ultimately becomes.
