These policemen have shown us that sometimes all it takes is one sincere act of kindness to correct a wrong.
36-year-old Norhidayah Hamid was caught shoplifting a few fever relief pads and some cakes from the shelves of a hypermarket. She committed the petty crime as her youngest child was sick and hungry.
Having just lost her job as a babysitter due to the MCO and her repairman husband also not receiving work requests recently, their family was tight on cash. Her shoplifting act was a desperate attempt to care for her family of five.
The guards who caught her filed a police report but in a twist of fate, Petaling Jaya district police chief, Nik Ezanee Mohd Faisal, chose compassion over punishment.
The policemen, who arrived at her at her doorstep later in the day, came bearing a care package from the Social Welfare Department, along with essential household goods to assist her family during this trying period. This included multiple Kool Fever packs.
On Petaling Jaya District Police’s Facebook Live, Nik Ezanee said he received a police report about Norhidayah and the list of things she shoplifted. He felt that he should meet this lady to find out why she committed this act.
Nik Ezanee Mohd Faisal and other policemen at Norhidayah’s PPR flat in Lembah Subang. (Polis Daerah Petaling Jaya Facebook – FMT)
“I believe that this person must be facing some problem to resort to this,” Nik Ezanee said.
He told the netizens watching that if we get hungry, we can bear with it, but if our children are hungry, that’s a different story.
“While lots of you are complaining about MCO-related restrictions, traffic jams and roadblocks, there are those who are suffering a lot more”, Nik Ezanee said. This compassionate policeman told us to bear with all these restrictions in fighting the virus and to sacrifice a little for a better future.
Norhidayah’s family have been hit hard by the latest Movement Control Order. She told FMT that when her youngest fell ill, she had to resort to shoplifting.
She said, “I only had RM50 in my pocket, and Koolfever (fever relief pads) are expensive. At that moment, I lost all ability to think and just stuffed it with some cakes into my bag. I was thinking of using the RM50 to buy food.”
Norhidayah and her family are so grateful for the compassion shown by these policemen despite the crime she had committed.
The police have advised her not to repeat the same mistake and reclassified her case as “no further action”.
Nik Ezanee has shown us how we should all practice compassion and understanding during these trying times. He understood that this woman’s actions were driven by her love for her family. If we all choose to emulate Nik Ezanee’s kindness, we will all thrive a little more as a community.
