Virginia Officer Went ‘Above and Beyond’ by Fixing Woman’s Car Problem

A Virginia woman praised a police officer for his act of kindness in troubleshooting a car problem she had.

Officer Jenkins pulled over Chy-Niece Thacker and told her that her brake lights went out.

“As he walked to the car and I was pulling out my stuff, he quickly said, ‘Don’t worry about pulling anything out. I just want you to know that your brake lights are out,'” Thacker wrote on Facebook, according to WTVR.

Thacker told the officer that her brake lights were replaced recently and was worried about another expensive repair job. “So I’m immediately upset because I just got them replaced last month. So I explained to him how Firestone wants to charge me $600 just to run a test on the wiring of the car,” she wrote on Facebook.

“He looked at me like [sad face emoji] and told me to pop the trunk. He checked the lights in the trunk and tapped them, but they didn’t come on. So he told me to pop the hood to check the relay box then asked me to get out to check the other one,” Thacker wrote.

She told WTVR that he cared more about safety than writing a ticket.

“I don’t want anyone slamming into the back of you,” he told her, according to the report.

But she said that Jenkins “went above and beyond” what she had expected.

“He could’ve easily given me a ticket, but Officer Jenkins stepped out of officer role and into mechanic role to make sure I was straight. #HesABlessing,” Thacker wrote.

The Henrico County Police responded to Thacker and shared her photos while thanking her for the kind words.

“We are so proud of our officers, especially when we see citizens share things like this. Above and beyond the call of duty, Officer Jenkins. Service to our community is what it’s all about,” the post said, Fox6 reported.

Oil Change Scams?

The CBC several years ago reported that scams are common at oil change shops.

Reporters go in for a $19.99 oil change but get charged more. “Generally speaking, these places deal with volume, not necessarily a repeat customer,” mechanic Mark Sach-Anderson told the CBC. “Most people don’t know about their cars,” added Sach-Anderson.

“All they can do is take somebody’s word for it. And if [shops] can show them a printout or something and it says, ‘Hey, this needs doing,’ who are they to dispute it?” Sach-Anderson said of customers’ mindset when getting their cars worked on.

In one instance, the report notes, Economy Lube salespeople told their investigators that they should replace fluid that had just been changed, saying that the fluid smelled like it was burning.

“If they are … receiving money for services that they did not perform, that you paid for, in all honesty, that’s fraud,” Mark Simchison, former fraud chief with the Hamilton police, told the broadcaster.

“It’s a heads-up for consumers,” Simchison added. “Be wary of who you deal with.”

And the CBC’s report found that some workers at quick-change shops aren’t trained properly.

“The reality is, they’re not technicians and they are not mechanics,” Sach-Anderson said.

“A mechanic’s licence is five years of on-the-job training and a minimum of three years of in-school training. These guys are straight out of high school, and when they’ve walked into these places, might not have known how to open a hood.”