Deputy Anthony Bussell isn’t used to seeing the young male motorists he pulls over on the roadside break down in tears.
Upon seeing exactly this at 3:30 a.m. during a traffic stop south of Kansas City last month, he was more than ready to lend a shoulder to cry on.
Through tears, a young man wearing a white ball cap in the car driver’s seat asked, “Can I have a hug?”
So the deputy gave him one.
The traffic stop was on a country road, on 199 Street, just off Homestead Lane in Johnson County. The young male driver allegedly had been doing 70 miles (112 kilometers) per hour in a 45-mile-per-hour zone.
Deputy Bussell didn’t smell alcohol or detect intoxication in the young man, he told The Epoch Times.
What he detected was deep distress in the young man who right away spilled a particular personal matter that was bothering him.
“I don’t want to tell you exactly what,” Deputy Bussell told us. But the young man’s tears welled up the second he spoke.
“It’s a little shock, I’m not going to lie,” the deputy told the newspaper. “I give this man a lot of courage, it takes a lot of courage to come out and say that to a total stranger.”
The request for a hug was granted by the man in uniform, who has served in law enforcement for 23 years. His unhesitant reply to the young man’s asking for a hug was, “Sure, yeah.”
“I don’t mean to bother you but I’m sorry,” the young man told him, getting out.
“No, you’re good man.”
They are seen hugging.
Everybody’s got hard times, no matter who you are, Deputy Bussell told us. The officer tried to make someone’s worst day his best.
Deputy Bussell offered to put him in touch with a Johnson County mental health counselor, but he said no.
Did he still get a ticket in the end? You bet. “Actions have consequences,” Deputy Bussell said. “The rural area that in Johnson County that we’re at is a two-lane road.
“There could have been a deer, there could have been another car with a family that you could have hit.”
“I could use a hug,” the young driver replied.
The touching scene from that footage soon went viral, shining a favorable light on law enforcement across the country.
“In the United States, if you apply for any law enforcement job, there’s always a question,” Deputy Bussell told us, adding what that is, “Why do you want to be a police officer?”
“It’s kind of cliché, but it’s to help the community,” he said.
