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Officer Mike Tarulli helped out a needy New Brighton family by buying them pizza and soda Saturday. (Staten Island Advance/Bill Lyons)

(Bill Lyons)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A nice-guy police officer went into his own pocket Saturday to help feed a cash-strapped New Brighton family whose power had been shut off for several days, according to police sources and a local community organizer.

The officer, Mike Tarulli, 36, has worked in the 120th Precinct's command post on Jersey Street for about two years, and on Saturday he heard that the family – who lives on a third-floor apartment on the 400 block of Jersey Street – was having electricity problems, sources said.

The family was without power for two days and everything in their refrigerator spoiled, Tarulli said. The family told him they wouldn't be able to buy groceries until their check came at the end of the month.

So Tarulli spent about $25-$30 and bought the family two large pizzas, several bags of ice for the refrigerator, and soda, he said.

When the officer made the special delivery, he said the father had tears in his eyes and the mother was shocked. The kids were jumping up and down screaming "Thank you!"

"The look on their faces was priceless," said Tarulli, who lives in New Springville. "I felt bad for them. For not that much money, I can make a family happy. That meant a lot to me, seeing the smiles on the kids' faces. It was worth every penny."

The family was trying to deal with the power situation with their landlord, and Tarulli, a 13-year veteran of the NYPD, stopped in to make sure the conversation was going smoothly, he said.

The family has four special-needs children, and their father was frantic about not having food for them.

"The power went off. They had to get rid of all their food because the food went bad," said Cynthia Davis, executive director of the Mount Sinai Center for Community Enrichment on nearby Jersey Street, and the head of the Staten Island contingent of Rev. Sharpton's National Action Network.

"He always does things like that in this community," Ms. Davis said of Officer Tarulli. "It's nothing new."