Photo: Screenshot / vpdonline
Undercover: Policeman as a wheelchair on the way
In order to stop raids on the disabled, a police officer pretends to be a wheelchair user. But the experiment takes a surprising turn.
Mark Hosley works as a police officer in Canada. As more raids on the disabled are reported on the area, he personally takes care of the things. Hosley starts an unconventional experiment: he pretends to be a wheelchair user.
More than half of the crimes are reported from the Downtown Eastside, a district with a particularly high crime and homeless rate. For this reason, Hosley decides to look at the district itself from a different perspective. In the wheelchair, he makes his way through the streets.
But what he experiences is far from any crime. Because the experiment takes a turn: the cop is not attacked. On the contrary: The supposed wheelchair user is received with a warm heartedness that he did not expect.
The first time a man heads straight for him, the policeman is on the alert. He counts on the worst. The denizen bends down to him, automatically Hosley's hands wander to his valuables. But the man does not want to steal. He wants to get permission to pray for the wheelchair user.
Amazed by his first experience, Hosley is already being addressed again. Money looks out of his pocket. This has also been noticed by a passerby. He approaches the undercover police officer. Then comes the next surprise: The man warns him not to lose his money. Hosley is speechless of the helpfulness that he learns from strangers on the street.
Hosley spends a full five days in a wheelchair. He started the experiment with mistrust, in anticipation of crime and injustice. Instead, within a few days, he learns to see the good in people again, which as a policeman can quickly be forgotten, when one is increasingly confronted with the bad.
