Valuable lesson learned? -- Dad arranges for police officer to pull over teen son

A traffic stop in Woodbridge turned into a Driver's-Ed lesson for one teenager, and what he didn't know is who was behind the whole thing – his dad.

News 12 Staff

Sep 6, 2019, 10:45 AM

Updated 1,863 days ago

Share:

A traffic stop in Woodbridge turned into a Driver's-Ed lesson for one teenager, and what he didn't know is who was behind the whole thing – his dad.
"In the rearview mirror, I saw the police car and I'm literally like panicking like oh no we're in trouble," says 16-year-old Jason Harrell.

Jason can now say he’s experienced most driver’s fear of getting pulled over.
"I go behind them, I turn on my lights and sirens and immediately his son just swerved right on top of the curb," says Officer Nirav Patel. "When I approached him, he was just shaking with his hands on the wheel he didn't know what to say."

What Jason didn’t know in the moment of panic was the whole incident was arranged by his dad, Scott.

"He says, ‘can you pull over my son?’ And I said what, why would you want me to pull over your son? And then he explained it to me. He said when he saw you in the parking lot and he was scared he got nervous he wanted to leave so he thought it would be a good teaching moment for him," says Patel.

Scott Harrell is a former police officer himself, and says he wanted his son to see a positive moment between police and the community -- rather than others that have flooded the internet.

"This is one of those instances where a young kid, a young African-American kid and a police officer had a great interaction," says Scott.

Scott posted about the interaction between the two on Facebook.