After responding to two violent crimes inflicted on people in wheelchairs, the Vancouver Police Department decided to launch Operation Wheelchair. In a series of five deployments, Staff Sgt. Mark Horsely went undercover as a cognitively disabled man in a wheelchair to see how strangers would respond, and the charity he received blew him away.
From offering to pray with him to sharing their personal struggles, many people treated him with the utmost kindness. And he shared more of these experiences:
He recounts how “the community accepted me very quickly as being one of theirs.” Though his vulnerability could have made him an easy target, in this situation his vulnerability helped build community instead. These people treated him not only with kindness, but, most importantly, with respect, and a scenario that could have turned violent instead turned to compassion. Each of these people filled the world with a little more charity and a little more hope.
And today we celebrate...