Police officer forms friendship with teen after responding to distress call

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    Baltimore (WJZ) — It was a routine call that led to an unlikely friendship between a Baltimore City Police officer and a young man from the southeast side of the city.

On September 3, Officer Johnathan Harris received a call for a person in distress.

“We’re canvassing the area, trying to locate this individual, does anyone have any luck with anything?” Harris was heard saying on the body cam footage.

They were looking for 18-year-old Micaiah Henderson.

“How you doing? This is Officer Harris from the Baltimore City Police Department,” Harris said.

Harris said that he was concerned.

“I’m making call after call, and in the back of my mind, I’m thinking what’s going to happen if I don’t find him,” Harris said.

Henderson had sent a concerning text to a friend and was feeling overwhelmed.

“When you’re in a certain environment, and you go through certain things, and certain things happen in your life, you get to the point where you just snap,” Henderson said. “And your mind is just made up.”

After a 25-minute search, they found Henderson at the public library.

“Henderson, right? I’m here to help you brother,” Harris is heard saying.

Henderson said he was uncertain at first.

“At first it didn’t seem real, I thought it was just them doing their job,” Henderson said.

“I’m here to tell you that you’re life is worth more, more than you can ever imagine,” Harris said to him.

But Henderson came to find that Officer Harris’ intentions were genuine.

“The more I hung around [Harris] the more I understood that’s someone you don’t meet everyday,” Henderson said.

“If you’re going through some struggle, I will do whatever I can to help you,” Harris said during the time of the call.

In the months since, Harris has kept that promise. He would take Henderson to get his drivers permit, take him out to eat and just be there to listen.

“It’s nice to know that somebody is there, you just have somebody to depend on sometimes,” Harris said.

It helped build an unlikely friendship.

“I never expected it,” Henderson said. “I never expected it to happen now. I’m happy it did.”

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