(The Chicago Sun-Times posted the following article by Frank Main on its website on April 17.)
CHICAGO — A fat black wallet was left behind on an L seat earlier this month when Chicago police officer Paul Clavijo climbed aboard to ride home from Traffic Court.
“It looked kinda thick, you know, like it had a lot of papers or pictures in it or something,” said Clavijo, 30, an officer for almost two years. “I thought I better grab it before someone else does.”
Indeed, there was a lot of paper in the wallet: 10 $100 bills.
Also, there was an ID for a Far South Side man, Rodney Batts. There were papers showing where he worked. And there was a birth certificate for Batts’ daughter.
“That got me,” Clavijo said. “I have a 13-year-old daughter. If I lost that, I’d be really worried.”
When Clavijo began his April 4 midnight shift that night in the Town Hall District, he arranged for the patrol officer in Batts’ neighborhood to visit his home to let him know his wallet was found.
An officer went to Batts’ door, but he wasn’t home, so he left Clavijo’s phone number with his family. The next day, Clavijo called Batts’ workplace and left another message, only saying he wanted to talk about “an incident on a train” in case Batts wasn’t really the wallet’s owner.
Batts called back and confirmed he lost a black wallet. Really thick.
“Then he paused and said, ‘Was there any money in there?’ ” Clavijo said. “I said, ‘All your money is there. All of it.’ And he kind of got choked up and said, ‘Thank you.'”
Batts told Clavijo he planned to give the money to his daughter for her college tuition. Batts traveled to the Town Hall police station on the North Side to pick up his wallet.
“He said, ‘Is there any way I can give you money to thank you?’ and I said, ‘It’s not about the money. It’s yours,’ ” Clavijo said.
Batts sent a note to the Chicago Sun-Times praising the officer for what he thought was going beyond the call of duty.
“I just want people to know that there are still honest police officers on the force,” he wrote.
Clavijo, a Cook County probation officer from 1994 to 1998, said he entered the Police Academy when he was 28 because he “wanted to do more for people who needed my help.”
“Other than a couple of fires where we got people out of houses and they were grateful, this is the one situation I got the most out of. Police sometimes get a bad rap. I was doing what I was supposed to do, but maybe this gives people a better impression of us.”