State trooper delays telling children of parents’ death, takes care of them on Halloween

"My parents went to the store to get more face paint. They told us not to open the door for anybody, but they should be back soon,"

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I have no words.

Well, that was a cry. SO tragic.

Fundraiser is now over $260,000. They will NEED this.

Maryn said:

I want more cops like this one.

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I do not envy being in his position in that moment. He did a damn good thing here.

"I wanted to preserve these kids' Halloween and the ones to come," he wrote in the GoFundMe statement...

<snip> "We hoped that they would then relate the tragedy to November 1st, rather than Halloween," Bradley wrote.

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Yikes. I think his heart was in a lovely place, but he can't un-ruin Halloween for them. Especially for the older kids, on reflection, they'll know that they were hanging out, having fun (although I can't imagine that they weren't profoundly disturbed to be spending the evening with the police rather than trick-or-treating) while their parents were dead.

And this:

"The children were put to bed in rooms at the post, still uninformed of the terrible news.

"You turned an F-Minus day into an A-Plus night!" the little girl told him at bedtime -- words he found difficult to take in.

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A) - seems unlikely. Why was Halloween an F-minus day? Seems like a strange thing for her to say under the circumstances of blissful ignorance.

B) - is, hopefully, a sentence she'll not read later, whether she said it or not. I'm not sure how she'll process how much fun she had the night her parents died.


Perhaps I'm in a cynical mood, but if this is how it played out, his good sense tripped over his kindness and accidentally landed in ghoulish unintended consequences. It does, as written , seem like he was trying to do a positive thing and that some good has come from it.

Perks said:

Yikes. I think his heart was in a lovely place, but he can't un-ruin Halloween for them. Especially for the older kids, on reflection, they'll know that they were hanging out, having fun (although I can't imagine that they weren't profoundly disturbed to be spending the evening with the police rather than trick-or-treating) while their parents were dead.

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Agree. He was trying to be kind, even going far out of his way to be kind. But I don't think he thought it all the way through. Still, kudos to him for the effort.

He didn't want to tell them their parents were dead, but I do wish the article had mentioned what he did tell them to explain why they were hanging out with State Troopers and tucked into bed at the trooper barracks.

Perks said:

He didn't want to tell them their parents were dead, but I do wish the article had mentioned what he did tell them to explain why they were hanging out with State Troopers and tucked into bed at the trooper barracks.

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Yes. There is something a little unsettling about *Knock Knock* "Hey kids, your parents won't be coming home tonight but you can trust me, I'm a state trooper, now climb in my cruiser so we can all go away together and somewhere else tonight."

That said, the story of what he did was really touching.

I can't help remembering the evening they told me and my sister that our father had died. I was nine. After the news of it and our first bout of tears, it was so awkward that no one knew what to do with us. So, they took us to Burger King - as a treat. (We were very poor and didn't get to go out for burgers very often.)

Nobody did anything wrong and I have no resentments of the choice to get out of the house and go to a place that was supposed to be fun. It seemed like the thing to do at the time. But it ended up being utterly surreal.

And guess who's never eaten in a Burger King in the thirty-six years since?

If I try to put myself in the shoes of these children (the youngest of the group is only a year younger than I was when only one of my parents died) I honestly shudder at the thought of them processing what was always going to be a terrible day, but with the accidental gilding of some kindhearted, but ultimately David Lynch-ian non-sequitur attempt at distraction.

Perks said:

Perhaps I'm in a cynical mood, but if this is how it played out, his good sense tripped over his kindness and accidentally landed in ghoulish unintended consequences. It does, as written , seem like he was trying to do a positive thing and that some good has come from it.

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I honestly don't think the GoFundMe donations reach the level they're at absent the story. So even if he embellished, I'd say it was worth it, and I'd say the quarter-million raised in a time of crisis outweighs any unintended consequences.

It kind of reminds me of that MASH episode where they kept working on a soldier who was gonna die no matter what so they could keep him alive past midnight so his family wouldn't have to think that he died on Christmas. In the end, he died before midnight and they forged the death certificate.

Perks said:

A) - seems unlikely. Why was Halloween an F-minus day? Seems like a strange thing for her to say under the circumstances of blissful ignorance.

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Agreed. Kids aren't stupid and they can be cagey, particularly when they're worried. I'd imagine they all guessed the truth, or something close to it, even if neither they nor the police came right out and said it.

Regardless, the oldest one saying his parents would be home soon hit me right in the feels.

There's never an easy way to tell a child their parent has died.

Sure, the trooper could have done things differently, and looking at the situation from outside - with the benefit of time, and not being faced with the need to make an immediate decision - it's easy to say what he could have done better.

The story may also have been sensationalized for the news as well - makes a more compelling tale.

Bottom line - a police officer, faced with a horrible job, made a decision to go above and beyond the call of duty.
No, it's not going to make things all better, or magically mean the kids remember Halloween fondly.
Sure, there may have been many other ways the whole situation could have been approached - and I'd love to know what they told the kids about the parents during the night.
But...
The officer could have simply told the kids of their parent's death, then called someone from child service to take them to a shelter, temporary foster care, or (as the article states) the county jail.
Instead, the officer delayed the bad news, still got the kids into a supervised situation, and instead of hearing the tragic news from a stranger, they were able to hear it from their grandmother, who was already there to take care of them.

There's plenty of room for criticism here, but without knowing more about the story, I think the officer did a remarkable job of thinking quickly, and making a series of difficult decisions.

And yeah, kids aren't stupid. I'm betting they knew something was dreadfully wrong...

Perks said:

He didn't want to tell them their parents were dead, but I do wish the article had mentioned what he did tell them to explain why they were hanging out with State Troopers and tucked into bed at the trooper barracks.

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I was wondering this, too. When I was 11, my mom had a major medical emergency that landed her in the hospital, and I was terrified. I can't imagine the kids weren't worried or didn't realize that something bad was going on.

I do think the cop was being a good guy, and that we need more cops who are willing to go out of their way to try to take care of people. I'm not sure if waiting to tell the kids was the best option or not, but it was certainly well-intentioned, and there was no good option here.

In the midst of all the controversy involving the police out there, I've almost forgotten that, "I'd hate to be the officer in that position" would be thought in something like this. I feel for the poor kids and I hope it softened the blow for them enough.

"You turned an F-Minus day into an A-Plus night!" the little girl told him at bedtime

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"Hello, is anyone there? This is SomethingOrOther."

"Thanks for calling. You've reached the residence of Bull Shit. What can I do for you?"

Perks said:

A) - seems unlikely. Why was Halloween an F-minus day? Seems like a strange thing for her to say under the circumstances of blissful ignorance.

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Because she probably wasn't blissfully ignorant. Kids can be amazingly perceptive in those situations. She probably figured out very quickly that something was seriously wrong (the older brother most likely as well), but she also realized that there were a bunch of people trying their hardest to be there for them. So she let the trooper know that his efforts were appreciated.

Vince524 said:

It kind of reminds me of that MASH episode where they kept working on a soldier who was gonna die no matter what so they could keep him alive past midnight so his family wouldn't have to think that he died on Christmas. In the end, he died before midnight and they forged the death certificate.

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I thought of the same MASH episode also.



My thoughts on the actions of that Trooper:

There were two deeply emotional events that NEEDED to happen to those kids. And that Trooper could have either sequenced them as "Event A" followed by "Event B," or he could have reverse the order and instead made them unfold as "Event B" followed by "Event A."

Event A: Kids learn both their parents are suddenly dead.

Event B: Kids allow their hearts to turn toward an alternative authority figure (a figure of compassion and reliability) other than their parents.

That Trooper delayed Event A, and made a reasonably soft bed of comfort and of an overall sense of security for the kids to ALREADY be nestled into before they learned of their parents' deaths. I think he made the right choice. And I suspect that Trooper has perhaps seen the more traditional route of A followed by B more than once in his career, or at least heard about the ghastly unfolding of A followed by B from other Troopers. Social workers, foster homes, teary kids being herded into a county vehicle in the middle of the night and driven away by a total stranger (the social worker) and "dumped" into the system for the first 48 hours after the deaths of the parents while the police and social workers attempt to locate other family members (or whomever) who can legally take custody of the kids. I guess that Trooper just didn't want that grinding machine to swallow those kids for the first 48 hours of that dark somber process.

I've been running it through my head.

The cop could have told the following to the kids, and it would NOT have been a lie (merely the withholding of SOME of the truth, albeit the most important parts of the truth).

"Hey, kids, my name is Trooper Smith-Jones. I have to tell you something super important. And then when I'm all done explaining it, you guys all need to come with me. Okay? You see, your parents were both taken to the hospital just now because they had an auto accident with their car a little while ago. They're going to be at the hospital all night long, and you guys can't be home alone tonight, so I was asked to have you guys all come and spend the night with me and all my cop buddies instead."

Now .... If he said something like this to them, then he would have left out the part about how their parents were either "dead on scene" or else "dead on arrival." But "taken to the hospital" was probably NOT a lie.

And thus we have our quote from the girl about the F- day.

Also, he could have slowly doled out small slivers of the truth in little bits at a time for the kids to try and cushion the blow (maybe said these additional things while the kids packed some clothes for the night, maybe said them during the car drive to the barracks, and maybe said them during the whole tucking-into-bed process):

-- "Well, the car was really kinda smashed up. They had to tow the car. Your mom and dad will probably have to buy a new car now."

-- "They took them both right straight to the hospital."

-- "I wasn't there when the ambulance took your mom and dad away. But the other police officers who WERE there told me your mom and dad were totally unconscious. The good part about that is that when you're unconscious it doesn't hurt. The bad part is that when you're unconscious, you can't talk on the phone. I wish we could call them, but they're unconscious. So we gotta wait to see when they wake up."

-- "We'll know more about it in the morning. Right now the doctors are doing what they can. Your mom and dad are asleep right now, and you guys need to get to sleep too."