A pizza delivery driver's route took an unexpected detour in Pinellas County on Tuesday when a crash disrupted the delivery, and a deputy made sure the order still reached the customer. Body-camera footage captured the deputy taking the bag and completing the delivery.
According to wfla.com, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office released the body-camera video showing deputies grabbing the pizza bag from the driver who was involved in the crash. The footage then shows the deputy driving to the delivery address and handing the pizza directly to the customer, the station reports. As NBC 6 South Florida put it, the deputies essentially rescued the pizza and completed the delivery themselves after the crash.
Fox News also covered the pizza delivery after a crash.
Not the First Time Deputies Have Played Delivery Driver
Tuesday's hand-off in Pinellas County joins a small but growing list of similar roadside rescues around the country. In Shelby County, a deputy identified in reports as Deputy Hugoboom grabbed a pizza and a 2-liter soda from a crashed delivery vehicle and made the delivery himself just around the corner, according to newsnationnow.com, after the original driver was taken to the hospital.
A similar scene played out in Charleston, where officers Pasquale Cuccaro and Robert Haid noticed multiple pizzas left in the backseat of a crashed Domino's delivery car and decided to personally deliver them to the waiting customer, per wect.com. And in Murrieta, California, an officer identified as Officer McCarthy stepped in to fill a delivery driver's shoes and got the pizza to the hungry customer, according to police1.com, though in that case the driver had been arrested on an outstanding warrant rather than injured in a crash.
A Tradition That Goes Back More Than a Decade
The move has a surprisingly long history in American policing. Back on September 1, 2014, two Portland, Oregon, police officers delivered a Pizza Hut order themselves after the original delivery driver was involved in a crash during his shift, according to snopes.com. In an unusual twist, Pizza Hut had already sent the customer a replacement pie because of the delay, so by the time the officers arrived with the original order in hand, the customer ended up with two pizzas.
In several of these incidents, officers stepped in to make sure customers received their orders.
