Sometimes all we need to be reminded of our humanity is a chance encounter with a stranger. A person at the coffee shop. In the grocery store. In the neighborhood. A moment to connect.

Chance struck recently in Southeast Portland when a man called 911 to say that his truck had been stolen. What should have been the most impersonal of interactions – the facts and only the facts – turned out differently because of the cop sent to the scene.

Officer Randy Hauskins just happened to have started his afternoon shift and was free.

Was it to supposed to happen in this way?

Perhaps.

When the call came, Hauskins, a 10-year veteran, traveled a familiar route, one that took him into his old neighborhood. As he turned down one street and then another, he knew exactly where he was going. The victim lived blocks from the home where Hauskins had spent the first 10 years of his life.

"I loved that neighborhood," Hauskins recalled. "When my parents moved, I had hated to leave."

And now he was back, not a boy, but a man in a uniform. He pulled his patrol car to the curb, thinking about the past and getting ready to take down the information from the victim.

A woman walked up to the car to say her husband, who had made the call, was inside taking care of their newborn son. She'd go relieve him so he could report the crime.

The victim, who asked he not be identified, represents every victim of a so-called minor crime.

He came outside to talk with Hauskins. He was 32 and a union carpenter. He worked side jobs, a finish carpenter, to make ends meet, often remodeling homes of people who had moved to the city and driven up the costs of housing. He was the family breadwinner, and facing tough times. A union project had recently ended. As is the case with such gigs, the carpenter had been laid off and his name was placed on the waiting list for the next assignment when a contractor needed a carpenter.

That was bad enough.

But then the truck, where he stored his tools, had been stolen. He told Hauskins he had no truck to get to a job and no tools to do the work. The man listed the tools stolen, giving an approximate value. They added up to nearly $2,000.

Hauskins dutifully filled out the report. He knew it would disappear into the system. Thousands of vehicles are stolen each year in Portland. No one is hurt, and no life endangered. As such, limited resources are devoted to investigation and even less to prosecution.

Hauskins was blunt: You might see the vehicle, but you're never going to see those tools again.

He was right. Days later, the truck was found abandoned in another section of the city. But the tools were gone, most likely pawned for a fraction of what they cost by drug addicts who needed a bit of money.

Hauskins, on to other calls, wasn't aware the truck had been recovered.

But he couldn't shake case.

"I'm not sure why this one was different," he said. "But it was."

Maybe it was coming back to his old neighborhood.

Maybe it was seeing a bit himself in the young father, the carpenter working with his hands to provide a better life for his son.

"I have girls," said Hauskins, 42. "This guy was working hard and doing the right thing."

He knew the life: Multiple jobs, using coupons and buying generic and always figuring out ways to make do with less money.

"I remembered when I was a young father," Hauskins said. "Times I was living check to check. I thought about leaving the bureau and a job I loved so I could make more money."

On his day off, Hauskins and his wife were at a restaurant when he decided to tell her about the routine call he'd been sent on. They talked about it. Then he said he personally wanted to replace the carpenter's tools. He didn't know how his wife would react.

"She said to go for it," Hauskins said. "Absolutely. Yes. She understood."

The next day, Hauskins called the carpenter to see if he'd bought replacement tools. Not yet, Hauskins learned. Money was too tight. Unemployment benefits covered the basics, but they had no extra money.

Hauskins told the carpenter to do nothing for a couple days. On the second of his days off, Hauskins drove over to Charles H. Day Co., a local tool distributor. He found an owner, explained the situation, what he was feeling and what he felt he needed to do. The owner said he, too, wanted to help. He got the tools at cost.

Hauskins called the carpenter to say he was going to be back in the neighborhood and wanted to drop by. When Hauskins pulled his patrol car to the curb, the carpenter came out to meet him.

Hauskins told him he'd been able to help with the tools. Nothing used. Everything was new, still in the box. Stunned, the carpenter asked how much he owed the cop who'd once been a stranger.

"No worries," Hauskins said. "It's covered."

That's when the carpenter got choked up. A couple nosy neighbors, wondering what a cop was doing, came out to see what was going on. When they learned why, it was hugs all around.

A carpenter got new tools.

You'd think he got the better deal.

But the cop also got something.

"Like most officers," Hauskins said, "I joined the bureau because I wanted to make a difference."

A chance encounter, a routine call at the start of an afternoon shift reminded him of that simple truth.

--Tom Hallman Jr.

thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224

@thallmanjr