A friend of mine once went to court and got a traffic ticket thrown out because the arresting officer had put her sex as “male.”
Somewhere in my files there is a proper Get Out of Jail Free letter, though it is likely of little use these days.
In the days before cell phones my wife stayed behind after we visited friends one winter evening. After she hadn’t shown up an hour or two later I began to really worry and was about to go retrace the 20 miles to our friends home when there was a knock at the door.
In walked my wife, with a police officer standing by the door and his cruiser parked in front of our house.
It turned out that her car had died on the side of the road about five miles into her drive, and she sat there in freezing cold for 45 minutes before a township cop pulled over to ask if she needed help. Once they figured out what happened, he organized a sort of bucket brigade where cops from neighboring townships would ferry her across their jurisdictions to hand her off to the next cop in line, until one finally delivered her safely home.
I wrote a letter of thanks to the chief of police in the township where her car had broken down, asking him to thank the officers who had shown such courtesy and kindness to my wife. I never expected to get a response.
A few weeks later I got a nice letter on official letterhead thanking me for the recognition of his officers, and saying that he passed along the thanks and added a note to their personnel folders. His closing statement was something along the lines of “If there is ever anything that I can help you with in XYZ township, let me know.”
That put a smile on my face.