South Jersey Kids Have a Ball When Police Officer Stops to Play

A South Jersey boy got some good practice on Friday for his first football game of the season this weekend when a local police officer stopped to play ball with him and his brother on the street.

The boys' mom, Brianna O'Rourke, captured the fun time that her sons Alex, 10, and Dominic, 5, shared with the officer in Burlington City on Friday afternoon on video. She said the officer happened to be stopped on her family's block while her sons were playing outside that day and spontaneously hopped out of the car to play football with the boys.

"All of a sudden, he just jumped out of the car and just started going crazy with the kids. They had so much fun," O'Rourke told NBC10. "He had two completions out of five with my 10-year-old son, Alex. Then he did a little bit of 'The Whip' [dance] for us."

O'Rourke shared the video on Facebook, and the City of Burlington Police Department also shared it on its page Saturday.

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"Ptl. Purkett passing stats for the shift were 2 completions out of 5 attempts, 0 TDs, 0 INTs, with 2 happy kids," the police department's post read. "Great job Ptl. Purkett! Thank you for the video."

O'Rourke said the impromptu football game came at just the right time: Alex played his first game with his team on Saturday.

She said her boys haven't stopped talking about how much fun they had with the officer's random act of kindness. To a mom, she said, that means a lot.

"With everything going on nowadays, with everybody trying to say the cops are bad, you know what? It really touched all of us to sit here. Even my neighbors were outside watching," O'Rourke said. "It's really touching to see positive energy with the cops getting involved with these kids. He didn't have to take time out of his day."

She said her sons learned an important lesson that day.

"These cops are good," the mom said. "We can trust them."