Crumb from a reader in Bremen, Indiana

Store employees at Kohl's in Fairfield, Connecticut, called police recently to report a shoplifter. Sgt. Hector Irizarry responded and arrested a 27-year-old woman who was with her two young children. When Sgt. Irizarry checked her bag for stolen goods, he found kids' clothes. And he immediately understood.

Instead of arresting the woman, he took her and her children to the cashier and paid for the clothes out of his own pocket. "She didn't know what I was doing," he said, and then it got emotional. She asked how she could pay him back. He told her to simply pay it forward whenever she could.