Girl Scout Robbed at Gunpoint, Then Cops Do Something Great

Thanks to a mass act of kindness by Union City police officers, the story of a cookie-selling Girl Scout robbed at gunpoint has a sweet ending. The 12-year-old and her mom were selling cookies outside a California Safeway around 5pm on Feb. 8 when a man approached and asked about buying some cookies, the Mercury News reports. The man walked off but soon returned. Police say he pulled out a handgun and threatened the Girl Scout's mom, who handed over an undisclosed amount of their cookie proceeds. The man ran off and hasn't been caught. "We see all kinds of awful things, but this is horrible," Officer Lisa Gratez tells KGO.

But then something great happened. Sgt. Steve Mendez says that after hearing about the robbery, officers around the city "started busting out their wallets." While officers collected donations to cover the money the Girl Scout lost in the robbery, the Union City Police Officers Association bought out her remaining cookie stock. All told, police gave the Girl Scout more than $1,000. "We did what we could," Gratez says. (More uplifting news stories.)