Last weekend, 16-year-old McKinley Zoellner was a passenger in his mother’s car while she filled up at a Houston gas station. The teen noticed a female deputy filling her cruiser up at another pump.
Just a week before, Harris County Deputy Darren Goforth was executed while filling up his cruise at a gas station in the same Texas city. Despite it pouring rain outside, Zoellner got out of his mother’s car and approached the deputy saying “ma’am, ma’am.”
When Deputy Tommi Kelley turned around and asked him what he wanted, Zoellner said, “Can I watch you pump your gas?” When Kelley asked why he told her he just wanted to make sure she was safe.
Kelley was so impressed she gave Zoellner a hug, something that impressed the teen as, like most other people, he had never gotten or expected to be hugged by a police officer.
As well as a hug, Kelley took a selfie with Zoellner and posted it on her Facebook page. The picture has since gone viral.
The deputy said, “To be nervous having to pump gas is sickening to me. So when you have someone so young and mature and thoughtful, and came up to help, I was very impressed with him.”
This is what Obama’s America has now become; a place where police officers have to fear for their safety while pumping gas.
