If you struggle to believe in the kindness of strangers, this train ticket story is sure to restore your faith. When Pittsburgh police officers responded to a disturbance at a Greyhound station, at least one of them chose kindness over cracking down.
Thursday, police received a call about an “unruly” man making a scene at the Greyhound station. Officer Steven Harris responded and found the man couldn’t understand or speak English. But Officer Harris made certain cooler heads prevailed. “Officer Keso hooked his phone up to an internet hot spot, we called the translator line, and we were able to finally boil it down.”
A lost traveler, stranded in Pittsburgh and in need of a ticket
The man had been on a Greyhound bound for New York City. Once there, he planned to transfer to Montreal. Presumably, the Montreal man is a French speaker, but he can’t understand or read English. He is also deaf. So when he got off the bus in Pittsburgh to stretch his legs and it took off with his luggage onboard, he was in a world of trouble.
Keso realized “he didn’t have any cash and needed a way out and his bags were missing. They were in New York.” Keso took the man across the street where a departing Amtrak train could get him to New York in time to catch his luggage. “I simply used my own bank card to buy the guy a ticket,” Harris said. He doesn’t ever expect to see the stranger again, or get paid back. He says, “pay it forward.”
Commander Tim Novosel explains this isn’t out of the ordinary. “I know Officer Harris, I’ve known him before he actually left the department and came back because he loved the work downtown so much… He just thinks differently than most people.”
A quick Google search confirms this is just the kind of man Harris is. When he was with the Erie PD and was asked to do a welfare check on a homeless person, he made headlines by buying the man a bottle of water.
Harris said, “We’re supposed to be good men. Good men helping other good men. That’s it.” See Harris describe the great Grandmother who taught him to be kind in the interview below:
