If you spend a few minutes browsing the internet in relation to Police-related stories, then you are usually met with a barrage of anti-police-motivated content which gives details of unverifiable stories about how someone saw someone who knows someone who heard something about ‘police brutality’.
Or you might be met with stories about how the police ‘should’ have done this, or ‘shouldn’t’ have done that etc.
But in reality, most Police Officers are caring and genuine individuals who really do just want to try and help people – as well as bringing those who break the law to justice.
Of course, as with ALL segments of society, there are bad apples in the bunch – but the good apples far outweigh the bad ones.
So we were pumped to read about a Police officer in Argentina who went way above and beyond the call of duty when, upon seeing a baby that had been neglected by its own mother, decided to immediately breastfeed the child.
The baby was dangerously malnourished when it arrived at Sister Maria Ludovica Children’s Hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The police officer concerned, Celeste Ayala, had been put on hospital guard duty on that day – a duty that most police officers will confirm can often be a tad ‘boring’ to say the least.
It has been reported that hospital staff had described the poor baby as being ‘dirty’ and ‘smelly’ – not that this is the baby’s fault – it’s down to the parents to keep a child clean.
Staff at the hospital were overwhelmed by an influx of patients and, upon seeing how overstretched they were, Ms Ayala decided to take immediate action and began breast feeding the baby – much to the amazement of the hospital staff.
Ms Ayala said to local press:
“I noticed that he was hungry, as he was putting his hand into his mouth, so I asked to hug him and breastfeed him.
“It was a sad moment, it broke my soul seeing him like this.
“society should be sensitive to the issues affecting children, it cannot keep happening”.
A colleague took a picture of the moment, and shared the image on social media.
The image has since been shared 110,000 times and has 152,000 likes. The colleague who uploaded the image captioned it by saying:
“I want to make public this great gesture of love you made today for this little baby who you did not know, but for who you did not hesitate to act like a mother.
“You did not care if he was dirty or smelly, which is what the hospital staff called him. Good job mate”.
As well as being a Police Officer, Ms Ayala also volunteers for the local Fire Department. They also released a statement in support of Ms Ayala by saying:
“We want to congratulate the voluntary firefighting cadet Celeste Ayala who yesterday in her job as police officer whilst she was on guard duty at the hospital, breastfed a young child who arrived crying.
“actions like these fill us with pride and obligate us to redouble the effort, the work and the solidarity with our community”.
According to the local media, the baby is the younger brother of six siblings, whose single mother has been struggling to cope.
In a world where many sections of the media are quick to criticise the police, a story such as this will often just get ignored as it doesn’t ‘fit in’ with the perceived popularity and narrative of being anti-police.
But Police Officers are human beings too – regardless of where in the world they serve (well, most places anyway).
Ms Ayala is not only a credit to the Police, she is a credit to humanity.
Few people would have made the decision, upon seeing the young boy in such a bad way, to go to the effort of breastfeeding someone else’s child.
No doubt the ‘anti police’ movement will spin the story so that it looks like the police officer ‘snatched’ the baby from its mother and ‘forced’ the boy to consume her breast milk.
Thankfully, the public has more intelligence than to be hoodwinked by organisations and individuals who have a personal vendetta against the brave and selfless men and women of, in this case, the thin blue (and red) international lines…
Celeste Ayala, we salute you! Your actions make you a credit to the uniform.
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