A heartwarming video recounting the help a teenage girl was offered after police officers found out she was living alone has gone viral.
Earlier this month, the Elgin police department in Elgin, Illinois, shared a video on Facebook titled: “Lost and Found - A Story of a Call.”
In the video, it depicts, with the help of actors, the moment that police officer Kevin Snow was notified by a property manager that a teenage girl appeared to be living on her own.
“I have this girl, she’s been in this apartment for about a month by herself, mom has been nowhere around, I’ve been monitoring her through the camera system,” the property manager says in the video. “I’m really concerned that, you know, she’s been there a while by herself.”
According to Snow, the property manager informed him that, despite appearing to be on her own, the girl was going to school every day by herself.
The call prompted officer Hector Gutierrez to check in on the teen. It was later determined that neither of her parents were in the picture, and that her mother was likely dealing with problems of addiction.
After sitting down to speak with the girl, and assuring her that she was not in trouble, the Elgin police officers found out that she had been using a Link card to buy food, but that it had run out of money.
According to Snow, the teen had been relying on the free lunch she was getting at school to feed herself.
“That was really an eye-opener for me,” he recalled in the video. “A kid going to high school, with so many things going on - trying to be popular, trying to fit in, trying to do well in school, pressures at home - and this girl went to school everyday and didn’t complain to any teacher, basically raised herself for an extended period of time.
“When I found out about this, it really hit me hard. I'm a father."
Snow ended up taking the teen out of school and bringing her to the police department, where they reached out to the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). The police were eventually able to contact the teen’s sister, who came into town.
The officer then took the teen and her sister to buy groceries and a suitcase, which he paid for.
With the support of the police, the teen was able to move in with other family members, where she “got back on her feet”.
The video of the police intervention, which has since been viewed more than 4.1m times, has prompted thousands of comments of support from the community.
“Absolutely beautiful,” one person wrote. “The kindness and compassion that was shown to this young lady will stay with her forever.”
Another said: “Thank you for sharing this story. Awesome job to the property manager and the police officers who made sure this young lady was taken care of.”
The dramatisation video was made by a company hired by the police department to show “the type of people here,” police chief Ana Lalley told the Chicago Tribune.
“That kind of stuff happens every day in the police department,” she said, adding that it is important to show “the police working with community members who call the police when they see something”.
Actors were used to portray everyone in the video except the police officers themselves.
