Instead of Issuing Ticket, Police Officer Teaches Teen on the Way to Dance How to Tie a Necktie

By Laura Stewart September 24, 2019 at 3:22pm

Video of the moment one mother’s son first learned to tie a necktie is going viral — and for good reason.

Christy Carter, a single mom in Park City, Utah, was hurrying to help her 17-year-old son Jake get ready for his homecoming dance when they realized that neither of them knew how to tie a necktie.

“Everybody learned from their dads,” Jake told KSTU.

Carter looked online for instructions and videos, trying in vain to wrangle the necktie into the proper knot. The high school senior’s date was waiting for him, along with his friends, so that they could all go to the dance together.

“I was like, ‘I haven’t left the house yet,'” Jake recounted.

Rushing, he and his mother finally gave up and hurried out to the car with the tie still untied.

With her mind distracted on the way to the dance, Carter didn’t stop completely at a stop sign and a police officer pulled her over.

“I look behind me to see those dreaded flashing lights,” the mom wrote on Facebook.

“I’m feeling like, A) I didn’t know how to tie a tie to help him, and B) I now am adding to his stress,” she told KSTU.

With the added time of filling out information for a ticket, Carter knew her son would be even later to meet his friends.

But when the officer walked up to her car, he realized something was wrong.

“He was upset,” Park City Officer Mike Carrillo said of Jake. “I didn’t think that giving his mom a citation was going to help issues any.”

Instead of writing a ticket, Carrillo asked why they were in such a rush.

After Carter explained the situation, Jake asked the officer if he knew how to tie a tie. Carrillo said he did and invited the teenager out of the car for a lesson.

The officer patiently explained as he illustrated the correct pattern of loops.

Carter pulled out her phone and started recording the sweet moment, thankful for the officer’s kind gesture. “It’s not every day you have a police officer tying your tie for homecoming,” she can be heard saying in the video.

Carrillo finished tying Jake’s tie and the teen thanked him, asking “Am I allowed to give you a hug?”

According to Carter, the policeman let them off with a warning so they could still make it on time for the dance. The single mom praised Carrillo on Facebook for helping to make a difficult moment so much easier for her.

“A big shout out to this Park City Police Officer who saved the day in an unusual way for a stressful, sinking, single Mom moment!” Carter wrote. “He had every right to write me a ticket.”

“We are proud of Officer Carrillo and his actions to turn a potentially negative experience into a positive one,” a representative for Park City Police Department wrote on Facebook.

“To make an impression on someone’s life — I’m always wanting to help people,” Carrillo said. “So it hit home for me.”

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