Anaheim Officers Stop To Help Elderly Man Mow Lawn On Hot Day
ANAHEIM (CBSLA) — When Anaheim police officers Alex Ungureanu and Lorenzo Uribe saw an elderly man struggling with a lawnmower on a hot and sunny afternoon, they knew they had to help.
"Uribe says, 'Hey, look at the old man pushing the lawnmower in the heat. Let's turn back and help him,'" Ungureanu said.
The pair were in the area responding to a call of a suspicious vehicle on an 85-degree Sunday afternoon.
"Part of our duties is to help our citizens," Uribe said. "And I think, based on the call we were on, this was a priority."
The man, 83-year-old Lupe Robles, had been working since dawn mowing his neighbors' yards and pruning and watering their trees and shrubs — for free — as he has done for the past 13 years in his Anaheim neighborhood.
"Uribe got on the lawnmower, and I started cutting some trees to see what else we could help him with," Ungureanu said. "He seemed very appreciative."
Soon after Uribe took over for Robles on the lawnmower, area residents began to record the friendly encounter posting the videos to social media.
"The vast majority of police officers really do this, it's just that they're not caught doing the act or they're not videotaped doing something good," Uribe said. "And there's a lot of us out there that do that."
And while a number of area residents praised the officers for stepping in to help, they said it was Robles who inspired them with his belief that the harder he works to beautify his neighborhood, the longer he's going to live.