As the adage goes, “let bygones be bygones.”
This is easier said than done.
Most people can freely blurt this out if they haven’t been hurt so badly or if life had been fair to them.
It also depends on the weight of the fault.
Daylan McLee of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, has a lot of reasons to hold a grudge against the police.
But he’s laying it down.
Wrongfully accused
Once, he was wrongfully accused of pointing a gun at an officer, which sent him to jail for a year until the jury acquitted him.
That, plus numerous traffic violations. Something that he thought was out of racial discrimination.
This made Daylan want to make sure and avoid any police officer most of the time.
He felt like each time he saw them, he’d be piled up with violations again. Worse, be wrongfully accused again.
But all this bitterness was swept away when circumstance called for it.
Daylan rose to the call.
There was a car accident at the corner of Uniontown. Daylan could hear a lot of noise, including screeching of tires and sirens all around.
He ran outside to the corner.
To his horror, he saw an awful car crash scene.
But what was more horrifying was the situation of the people inside the car.
The vehicle involved was a cop car.
He saw how the hood of the car was smashed beyond recognition. A police officer was trapped inside, and while a fellow police officer came to the scene to help, he couldn’t pull him out.
With gas leaking and flames spreading, Daylan did what he knew he should do.
He ran to the scene.
Daylan pulled the officer out.
He admitted that he couldn’t remember, nor could he figure out how he was able to do that. (Adrenaline, maybe?) But he was glad he did.
That day, Daylan chose to let bygones be bygones which saved the life of Officer Jay Hanley.
Officer Hanley couldn’t remember a lot.
All he could recall was that someone ripped the door open, and he’s thankful for that man for he saved his life.
Both Daylan and the police officer finally met and hugs were all over the place.
Officer Hanley was thankful for someone like Daylan, who could not have done anything granting his history with the police.
The officer’s wife was obviously very grateful to him as well.
Despite his experience with the cops, Daylan believes that there are still good cops out there.
Making way for change
He told the officer that he couldn’t wait for him to be back at work after he recovers. This meant a lot for the police officer.
As for Dylan, he hopes that this encounter will help change how the police treats its citizens of color and vice versa.
Standing as one
“I want people to start to look at everybody as Americans and not, ‘He’s White, he’s Black, he’s Asian.’ We’re people – and when we start realizing that things should get better,” he told CBS News.
Officer Hanley is lucky that Daylan was in the right place and that humanity won over animosity.
See their heartwarming meeting in the video below!
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