An African-American Arlington,Texas, police officer is making headlines—not for brutality—but for how we dealt with a teenager who was caught with marijuana.
According to CBS News, off-duty officer Eric Ball the teen the option of being cited for marijuana possession or doing 200 push ups after the boy was caught smoking weed outside of a movie theater. Obviously the teen opted for the push-ups. Later on, Ball found the youth’s mother who reportedly hugged and thanked the officer for providing the teen with an alternative punishment.
Ball said that the boy was respectful and realized he’d made a mistake. In addition, Ball played football under coaches who used pushups to ensure discipline,CBS noted.
While this was transpiring Raiza Paradez, a bystander, taped the incident and posted it on Facebook stressing that not all police officers are bad.
She wrote: “Big UP’s to the Arlington Police Officer that made the young black guy that decided to smoke weed on the movie theater parking lot to do push-ups then take him to jail or shoot him just Cuz. We need more cops like this. #Policeeverywhereneedtotakenotes #ArlingtonPoliceDept”
While the video has since gone viral since she posted it last week, Paradez later addressed criticism she had received for posting the video including that she might get the officer fired.
“There’s more young men out here that need strong men like this in their lives. Sometimes these kids need a second chance God forgives us daily for our sins. Show them they can be better than road they’re going down. Instead of being so quick to throw them in the back of the car or worst shoot and kill them,” she wrote.
Texas Police Officer Has Teen Do 200 Push-Ups Instead Of Arresting Him For Smoking Weed was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
