Panhandler Expects Ticket, Gets Lunch

Lynn Murphy, a homeless mother of four, was panhandling on a road in Fall River, Mass., when she noticed a state trooper driving toward her. She was thought she was going to get a citation. Instead, she got lunch, ABC News reports. Trooper Luke Bonin, in plainclothes as he returned from court, approached Murphy with two meals and told her to choose one. “I thought he was just going to hand me the meal," but instead, he said, "‘Come around the back, it’s such a beautiful day, we’ll have a picnic,’" Murphy tells CBS News. "It touched my heart."

The kind gesture would have gone undocumented if Jake Morse hadn't driven by at the right moment. He snapped a photo and posted it to a local Facebook group. "He just stopped, could have given her a hard time and didn't," Morse says. "And we need that." The Massachusetts State Police got wind of the photo and was able to track down Bonin, who said he wasn't expecting publicity. "We know you didn’t want to be noticed," the agency writes of Bonin in a Facebook post, "but you were, and the job is proud of you. We commend you for your selfless act." (More Massachusetts stories.)