Ignoring the Crowd - The Story of Angie

Ephisians 2:8-9 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

A dear friend of mine, Pastor Tom Stephen, wrote in his book Fearless that Jesus calls us to listen to His voice of assurance and hope even when others tell us to give up. On his Facebook group PCH Disciples, Tom recently quoted Dr. Albert Schweitzer who said, “Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few stones upon it.” There are times when the “right” thing to do is not always the God thing to do. The story of Angie is one of them.

For almost two years, I was part of a team of police officers assigned to deal with nuisance crimes in the downtown and beach front areas of Santa Barbara. My job was to arrest people for crimes like panhandling, drunk in public, drug dealing and the like. Most of the time, the people I arrested were living on the street.

On one particular Christmas Eve in the early 1990’s, I was working with two partners looking to arrest people who were panhandling in the downtown area. There is nothing wrong with helping out a fellow human being, however; the people we were after used the season to prey on people’s compassion to get money for alcohol and drugs. We knew these individuals well as we arrested them many times for this type of crime. As we drove through downtown Santa Barbara filled with holiday shoppers, we spotted Angie, one of the more productive panhandlers. A pretty face telling lies about her hard life as a homeless girl trying to make it back to her hometown, the name of which changed every week.

Angie was a young woman who lived on the streets of Santa Barbara. She was 18 years old and hung out with Mark. Mark was much older and took “care” of her. It was common for a young woman like Angie to rely on an older man to provide her protection and companionship under the guise of a twisted kind of love. He sold marijuana and she panhandled to make money. They were part of a group that choose to be homeless and engaged in criminal activity to support their lifestyle. They loitered in the downtown area and were a nuisance to business owners, tourists and residents.

On this particular night, I was wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a jacket to blend in with other Christmas shoppers. I walked toward Angie and got close enough to listen as she asked people for money. She did not notice me standing near her. After a few minutes observing Angie commit multiple panhandling violations, I arrested her and put her in handcuffs. I called my partners to drive up in the unmarked police car to take her to the police station. At the station I would fill out the paperwork required to book her at the county jail. Normally she would be released after a few hours but since it was Christmas, she would remain in custody through the holiday.

Angie started crying immediately and pleaded with me not to put her in jail on Christmas Eve. She knew it meant she would spend Christmas in jail. She wanted to be with Mark. This was about her twentieth arrest for panhandling and there was no reason to let her slide, Christmas or not. My partners and I told her to be quiet since she would never stop panhandling so why in the world would we cut her a break. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

We got to the station and I started the paperwork. As I filled out the jail booking form, I began to consider letting her go with a citation rather than to put her in jail. It seemed to me that this might be an opportunity to show her grace and mercy in a situation where none was justified. I stopped filling out the paperwork and went to find my partners to tell them what I decided to do. Both of my “partners” immediately began to ridicule me. In fact, they later left the station without me and went to dinner to let me know they did not approve of my decision.

I tossed the jail booking form in the trash and filled out a citation for Angie. I let her out of the holding cell she was sitting in and escorted out of the police department to the driveway. I told her this, “Angie I am not going to put you in jail tonight because I am choosing to show you grace. You don’t deserve this and it is only because of grace that you are going to be able to spend Christmas with Mark.”

She signed the citation. I gave her a copy and she walked down the driveway and into the Christmas Eve night. It was a cop story that became a God story.