My partner turned onto S. Rio Grande Street. I pointed to a spot just beyond the homeless shelter and said, “There’s the van and the parking enforcement officer.” My partner nodded. We’d been called to assist in a dispute between a parking enforcement officer and a man with multiple parking tickets whose van was to be impounded until the fines were paid. We passed the van, pulled over, and exited our car.

Rust peeked through the van’s white paint; a hubcap was missing. On the sidewalk beside the van, a scruffy, middle-aged man stood, waving his arms, one moment pleading with the female parking enforcement officer, the next moment yelling. Great, I thought. Let’s get this junk on wheels off the street so we can get to a real call. “C’mon,” the van owner said. “It’s all I got.”

The parking enforcement officer noticed my partner and me, nodded to us, then smirked at the soon-to-be vanless transient. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “The law is the law. You just had to keep parking illegally, again and again. You have so many unpaid fines that this is what happens. Follow the rules next time. Simple as that.”

The man pressed his hands to his head and made a high-pitched shriek.“We’re at the homeless shelter. I don’t have a place to park. The homeless shelter doesn’t have parking for people staying here. Man, I got a job lined up, but I have to have the van to get there. Please. Just give me a little time. I promise, I’ll pay.” “I’ll allow you to get your belongings from the van,” the enforcement officer said. “You want to argue…” She gestured at my partner and me. “These two gentlemen can restrain you, or take you to jail for resisting or obstructing. Your choice.”

The man faced us, gawked, and blinked with red-rimmed eyes. He whimpered, then spun and stomped to the side of the van, muttering to himself. He yanked the sliding side door open and ducked inside. The van bounced with his movements. The owner stumbled out carrying two car seats. He set them on the sidewalk, then went back inside. I glanced sideways at my partner who watched the unfolding scene in silence, studying every move.

The van owner continued to mutter and glower at the parking enforcement officer, though an occasional whimper broke through his anger, accompanied by a pained scrunching of his features. After his third trip to the van, tears began to streak his cheeks and glistened in his short beard. “Wasn’t my fault I lost my job,” he said. “Then I lose my house. Of course I lose my house.”

Probably did drugs or showed up to work drunk. My mind focused on a profile I had created for this man. You have to obey the law, pay your parking tickets just like everybody else, I thought to myself. Everybody has an excuse, but the law is the law.

The man entered the van, then exited with two booster seats for older children, which he set beside the car seats. Next came a duffel bag and two backpacks. As he removed items from the van, he kept glancing at a frumpy, middle-aged brunette and her four children, gathered about twenty yards away. I realized they must be his family.

The woman hugged herself and appeared to have tasted something sour. The two older children, a boy and a girl, somewhere around ten and eight, watched with wide, hardly blinking eyes. A boy of about five sat on the ground playing with a Hot Wheels car while a toddler squatted, staring intently at something on the sidewalk, maybe a bug. Oh, I thought, and shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Great.They’ve dragged their kids into this homelessness. It’s like a disease. What a mess.

The man paused with a rolled-up sleeping bag in each hand. He turned to the enforcement officer, who watched with one eyebrow cocked and her lipsticked mouth pursed. “Please.” He hefted the sleeping bags. “All our stuff, just sitting here on the sidewalk, by the shelter…They’ll steal it. They only allow a few personal possessions inside the shelter. Please, it’s all we have left.” A tow truck arrived and the enforcement officer’s face lit up like she’d seen an old friend. She waved the truck over.

“Please,” the man said again to the enforcement officer, and then a whisper. “Please.” “It’s the law,” she said, not looking at him. “It’s the law.” I grimaced and wondered if I ever looked so gleefully sadistic when I told somebody that I’d arrested, or cited, that it was “the law” and there was no use arguing. But, then again, the tow truck was already there. And like the lady said, it’s the law. “Take it off!” someone yelled. I flinched, then realized the man who’d yelled was my partner. He’d been so quiet. I’d almost forgotten he was here.

The enforcement officer jabbed buttons on her phone, then sneered at my partner while she waited for someone to answer. When she spoke into her phone, her sweet voice did not match her expression. My partner had his own phone out and was making a call. I groaned. Parking enforcement versus Salt Lake PD? This couldn’t end well.

Phone to his ear, my partner wandered over to our car and leaned against the door. A minute or so later, his call ended. He folded his arms and waited. I hurried to my partner. His poker face revealed nothing. “What’s going on?” I said. He glanced at me, then over my shoulder at the enforcement officer, who paced as she spoke into her phone. My partner’s attention returned to me. He said, “I talked to our sergeant, briefed him, and he’s trying to get ahold of the lieutenant.” The van owner stood beside his wife, rubbing her shoulder while eyeing us warily.

My partner’s phone rang and he answered. “Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah, that’s right. That’s what I said.” I listened to my partner’s side of the conversation, but couldn’t tell what was going on. I noticed the enforcement officer glaring at us. She flinched and brought her phone back up to her ear. She resumed her angry pacing, then stopped abruptly, spun to face my partner, and her eyes widened. She yanked the phone from her ear, stuffed it in her pocket, and stomped over to the tow-truck driver, who stood on the street beside his open door, his expression bewildered. Whatever she said, the tow-truck driver shrugged and headed for the back of his truck. He began to unhook the van.

I raised my eyebrows and grunted. Wow, I thought, and glanced at my partner, whose lips curved with a hint of a smile. The enforcement officer shot my partner with one of the most venomous looks I’d ever seen. The van owner and his wife stared silently at us, then at each other, then back at us. The enforcement officer slammed her door shut, window open, jabbed a finger in our direction and yelled, “When you guys go off duty, I’ll find that van. I’ll impound it. So you just wipe that look off your faces.”

I shook my head and said, “What in the world just happened?” My partner shrugged. “Our boss talked to her boss. They agreed with my assessment.” “Hey,” the tow truck driver said, raising his hand like a student in a class.“Who’s paying for my time?” My partner approached the tow truck, sliding his wallet out of his back pocket as he went. He handed something to the truck driver.

My mouth opened as I realized my partner had just paid the driver with his own money. My partner and the driver shook hands. A moment later, the tow truck rumbled away. I felt small. Cowardly. I also felt a lot of respect and admiration for my partner. He’d gone out on a limb and done what he thought was right despite the risk involved to his career. “Hey,” I said to my partner. “I have an idea.” “What’s that?” I had just done a mental and philosophical about-face and wanted to follow his lead. “This is all for nothing if that van keeps parking illegally, right?” “Okay,” my partner said slowly. I had his full attention now.

I grinned, though I wasn’t sure if my plan would work. I did a search on my phone and found the number for a nearby hotel. I knew the manager pretty well, having answered several calls on his behalf. The receptionist forwarded my call and the manager answered. I then raced over to the hotel and explained the situation.

“So,” I said to the manager, “if they could park their van on your lot for a little while, it won’t be towed.” The manager laughed. “You guys owe me.” I thanked him and ran out. “We’re good?” my partner asked. “We’re good,” I said. I jogged over to the waiting van owner and his family. I outlined the plan. The man kept shaking his head and murmuring, “I can’t believe it.” The wife bit her lower lip and wept. When I finished talking, the couple took turns hugging my partner and me.We helped put their stuff back in the van and they drove away with a honk and a wave. My partner slapped my shoulder, “I guess we’re done here.” I nodded and we returned to our car.

Later, on my way home, my thoughts returned to my experience with the van. My partner had seen how mercy could intervene with justice, and he had the integrity and courage to act according to his conscience. That parking enforcement officer could have impounded the van and been justified by the law, but just because something was legal, didn’t always make it the best course of action. Something I’d recently read, something Abraham Lincoln had said, came to my mind: “I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.”

I’d try to remember that as I continued in my career in law enforcement. There was something else that I tried to commit to: No matter what happened on the job, or in life, I had to try to follow the dictates of my conscience. Some days I would listen. Some days I would fail. I had to try to have the moral fortitude to act on what I believed to be right. I didn’t know it then, but eventually, I’d discover just how much trouble a person could get in for doing what he or she thought was right.