Two Illinois men drove close to a thousand miles in an RV full of supplies for Hurricane Harvey victims in Texas when a Vidor officer demanded that they leave.
A Facebook video posted by James Hartwell captured the incident on Saturday, when Jared Kirkendoll and Scott Green drove the large RV past an officer standing to the side of the road in Vidor. The officer, apparently angry, motioned for the guys to stop the truck, then asked the man identified as Jared Kirkendoll to step down and talk to him.
When Kirkendoll asked what the problem was, the officer screamed at him and demanded his identification.
“Because I said so!”
“You don’t gotta be so grouchy … what do you need?” Kirkendoll said back to the officer.
“Climb on down. I want to look at your identification … climb on down,” the officer shot back.
As Kirkendoll climbed down and talked to the officer, the video didn’t pick up what the the pair said to each other, but everything seemed fine when they shook hands and Kirkendoll walked back to the RV. Yet, the officer spoke up again and said that he had had “enough,” insinuating that the men’s assistance wasn’t wanted or needed in Vidor.
“We’re just trying to help … we’re out of a s–tload of money,” said Kirkendoll.
“My patience is running thin because my house is flooded too and I gotta be out here helping people. I appreciate that you’re here, but we’ve had enough,” the officer said.
So far, the clip has been viewed on Facebook more than five million times, catching the attention of the Vidor Police Department. The police force took to Facebook and wrote that the officer seen in the video was not a part of Vidor PD and did not represent them.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1153708584772475&id=573383529471653
A Facebook user named Sherry Jacks Davis replied to Vidor PD’s Facebook post. She wrote she was sharing a message from a friend who said the officer in question stopped the RV because they were “driving recklessly, throwing flood water into the homes and businesses of the people in the area and not behaving in any manner that would benefit the people of the community.”
The post also said the driver of the RV was warned on several occasions to stop driving recklessly before the officer signaled him to stop.
The two men have since driven back to Illinois, but they did what they set out to do and assistance numerous victims who needed help, despite what the officer said.
https://www.facebook.com/djs.powdercoating/videos/vb.100004587402058/851292885033617/?type=2&theater
[Feature Photo: Facebook]