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Beyond the call of duty: Officers clean up elderly man's yard after storm

Posted at 6:21 PM, Oct 23, 2016
and last updated 2016-10-23 18:21:33-04

INDEPENDENCE, Ky. -- Powerful storms tore through Nelson Abdullah’s yard Wednesday, but he said he feels nothing but gratitude.

Two Kenton County police officers went beyond the call of duty when they suited up in work clothes, broke out the chainsaws and proceeded to clean the debris out of Abdullah’s yard.

With his wife of 56 years bedridden, cleaning up the debris left by the storm was difficult for Abdullah. He said the officers must have noticed the damage.

"They wanted to make sure that everything was good. I told them it was,” Abdullah said. “Then they said to me, ‘We're going to go home and change into our work clothes, and we're going to come back and help clean up your branches.’”

Abdullah said he was in disbelief

"It grabbed me in the heart really,” Abdullah said. “I felt like I was going to cry."

Kenton County Police Chief Michael “Spike” Jones said helping members of the community is what police officers are supposed to do.

"That's what we do,” Jones said. “That's what we're supposed to be doing.

“There's a lot more to running a good police department than enforcing laws."

The officers involved in this act of kindness asked to not be named because they did not want the recognition.

“...Really I couldn't be more proud of these guys than anything else,” Jones said.

Abdullah said the officers and their kindness brought him to tears, and gave him a sense of community that no storm could ever shake.