Hundreds of children get to shop with a cop

GREENWOOD, Ind. (WISH) – Walmart on South State Road 135 in Greenwood was packed with officers on Saturday, many armed with paper and pen in hand.

Officers from at least a dozen central Indiana law enforcement agencies all went shopping with about 140 children for the Trooper Bartram Memorial Foundation’s “Christmas for Kids” shop with a cop event.

Each officer was paired with a child and walked around the store picking out clothing and toys for the child. Each child, selected through school or church organizations, was allocated $125 by the foundation. This is how the law enforcement community is helping those in need while remembering one of their own.

Indiana State Trooper Patrick Etter said, “Trooper Pat Bartram participated with the local FOP Shop with a Cop in his community. When he was killed in 1998 in the line of duty his family wanted to continue that tradition in his honor and started raising money through various means to give back to the FOP for their Shop with a Cop and that has turned into us having our own foundation now to where we do this program and we do it in conjunction with other departments to where they may have theirs on the 12th and we do ours on the first Saturday of December and we check with other agencies to see if they don’t have enough money to take all of their kids then maybe we can accept some of their kids to ours.”

Walmart employees also lined the sales floor to welcome the officers and children, many of whom had big smiles on their faces.

“The police get as much out of this sometimes as the kids do,” Trooper Etter said.

Click here to find out more about the Trooper Bartran Memorial Foundation and how you can donate.