EMMETT TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP/WWJ) – A Michigan police officer who stopped a vehicle following a report of a child riding without a car seat ended up doing something other than ticketing the driver.

Emmett Township Department of Public Safety Officer Ben Hall told WXMI-TV he bought a booster seat for the 5-year-old girl, calling it “the easiest 50 bucks I ever spent.”

Hall says he was on patrol Friday in the Battle Creek-area community when he stopped the vehicle. Alexis DeLorenzo and her daughter were riding with a friend and Hall says DeLorenzo told him that she had fallen on tough times and couldn’t afford a booster seat.

DeLorenzo says Hall told her to meet him at a Wal-Mart, where he bought the booster seat.

Officer Hall told the TV station that writing a ticket would not resolve the problem; so, instead, he went shopping.

“It was the easiest 50 bucks I ever spent,” Hall said. “It’s something that anybody in the same position, in our position would do…I in no way, shape or form expect to be paid back. It is a ‘pay it forward’ situation completely.”

DeLorenzo said the officer’s actions changed her life, and her daughter is “head over heels” for Hall.

“For a police officer that could have just given me a ticket, and gotten me in a whole lot of trouble, he out of the kindness of his own heart and out of his own pockets did something for me and my family that I’m never gonna forget,” she said. “He did his job and above and beyond that, just to protect a little girl and to help a family that can’t help themselves right now.”

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