Texas mom Nicole Dean learned this week that sometimes, a minor inconvenience can turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

She was in the car with her baby boy Kyler, when she decided to try to make a yellow light pulling out of a shopping center. She missed her timing, and ended up running the red light instead.

Just moments later, a nearby police cruiser pulled her over for her infraction. But—in a case similar to story of the officer who pulled over a grieving woman—when Officer Jeremy Reyna came up next to her car, he noticed something that troubled him a lot more than her innocent traffic violation.

In the backseat, 9-month-old Kyler was strapped into a baby seat that looked like it was falling apart at the seams. Like the officer who caught a homeless mom shoplifting, Reyna simply couldn’t let them go without lending a hand.

Instead, he went back into the shopping center to a Walmart, where he purchased a brand-new car seat for little Kyler. Dean, whose family was homeless until just last year, simply couldn’t afford a better seat for her baby than the one that she bought second-hand.

Instead of asking for payment, Officer Reyna asked her to “pay it forward,” and Nicole says that she’s simply grateful that the officer pulled her over.

And if you loved hearing this story about a police officer going out of his way to help those in need, please SHARE on Facebook in celebration of Officer Reyna!

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