Two Phoenix Officers Spent Their Own Money on Clothes, Toys and a Pink Bicycle for a Toddler Turning 2 After Her Dad Lost His Paycheck to a Scam
The small pink bicycle with tassels was bought for a girl too young to ride it, and that was the point. Phoenix Police officers Alessandro Figuccio and Tanner Schnieder picked it out with their own money, along with clothes and toys, for a toddler turning 2 the day after they met her father, AZFamily reported. Her dad, a DoorDash driver, had just lost his last paycheck to a scam.
A scam call about a deactivated account
Figuccio and Schnieder are partners at the Phoenix Police Department’s Cactus Park Precinct and had worked together for about a year, according to Fox Carolina’s version of the AZFamily story. About two months before the report ran, the pair were looking back through their call log when one entry stood out. A man who said he drove for DoorDash had been contacted by someone who seemed to be calling from the company.
The caller said his account had been deactivated and told him to enter a code at a kiosk to reactivate it. Soon afterward his last paycheck was gone. AZFamily said scammers took “hundreds of dollars” and did not give an exact amount, and the station did not name the father.
The pattern is a familiar one among delivery drivers. A FOX 9 report from Minnesota in June described a Brooklyn Park driver who lost more than $400 and was locked out of her account after a caller posing as DoorDash support asked her to verify it. The station reported that police advise drivers never to give secondary identification codes over the phone, no matter who is calling.
The cart at the store
When the officers went to the man’s home to take a report, he told them he had just paid his rent and his car payment and had nothing left. His daughter’s birthday was the next day. Schnieder described the scene to AZFamily: the father had his daughter in a high chair, eating, while he started to break down.
Looking in and seeing the girl, Schnieder said, was when it hit him. He told the station that his own family had once been in a difficult position, which is part of why he wanted to help.
The officers left, went to a store and began filling a cart. Schnieder said they simply started throwing things into the cart. They chose clothes and toys for a girl turning 2 and added the small pink bicycle with tassels for when she is older. Schnieder said the thinking was that if he were the girl, he would be thrilled.
They paid for everything themselves and drove it back to the family’s home. The father cried when he saw the bicycle and hugged the officers, according to the report. Figuccio, who has said becoming an officer was a childhood dream, told AZFamily the gesture was rewarding, especially because he knew the man had almost no money left. Schnieder was a truck driver before he changed careers.
What drivers and parents are told to do after a scam call
For drivers and families facing the same kind of call, the Federal Trade Commission’s guidance on how to avoid a scam notes that scammers often pretend to represent a business a person trusts and can change the number that appears on caller ID. The agency advises against sharing personal or financial information in response to an unexpected request, and against letting anyone rush a decision. If a message seems to come from a company a person uses, the FTC says to reach the company through a website or phone number looked up independently. Anyone who was scammed can report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
The Phoenix Police Department directs people who need to file a report that is not an emergency to its Crime Stop line at 602-262-6151 or to its online reporting forms. In this case, a routine report turned into a birthday: the girl turned 2 with new clothes, new toys and a bicycle waiting for her to grow into it.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: Visitor7 – CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikimedia Commons
