Officers knocking on your door isn’t always a bad sign
Sometimes cops come armed with ... turkeys. Frozen ones. Hundreds of them.
Dozens of uniformed officers with Metro distributed more than 400 turkey dinners to families in need Monday.
Karen Moctezuma, when she heard the knock at the door and saw officer Sam Diaz in uniform, first thought her younger brother was in trouble.
"Thank God it was only a turkey, and not Juan. Phew," said Moctezuma, dropping the name of her brother but relieved all the same.
The Moctezuma family lives at the Wood Lake Apartments in the central valley, which Diaz has on the radar as a member of the Hispanic American Resource Team, or HART.
"It's the least we can do," he said, in reference to helping all the families. "Everybody's pretty happy when they see us and they know they won't have to worry about buying a turkey. It's fun to see the expressions on their faces."
Along with the turkey comes canned goods, including green beans, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and all the essentials for a turkey dinner, Diaz said.
The turkey program has been going strong for 16 years, a product of the LVMPD Communications Bureau. At 7 this morning, the assembling of the turkey dinner began.
The families should get their dinners by four this afternoon, said Jose Hernandez, a spokesman for Metro.
As for Karen Moctezuma, 21, she said she plans to hustle the frozen turkey down to the local church where she celebrates mass.
"There's going to be a party down there, and I think we'll bring this," she said. "Everybody is supposed to bring something."
Contact reporter Tom Ragan at tragan@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5512.
