Mundelein cop lauded for helping homeless woman

A veteran Mundelein cop is being lauded for lending a helping hand to a homeless woman living out of her car.

Officer Katie Smith was on patrol last Thursday morning when she was called to a shopping center parking lot on Maple Avenue near Midlothian Road, after the property managers reported a car had been parked there for some time.

Smith encountered a woman in her 60s, who said she was homeless and couldn't start her sedan because the battery was dead and the vehicle didn't have any gas.

The officer arranged for Ernie's Wrecker Service of Vernon Hills to come over to give the car a jump - for free. At the same time, Smith's colleague Officer Dan Schmidt made a couple of trips to the corner gas station to fill a gas can. Smith paid for the $16 worth of gas, declining to submit the receipt for department reimbursement or split the cost with her supervisor.

"Rather than just say, 'You gotta go,' Katie took it upon herself to figure out the situation," Police Chief Eric Guenther said Saturday. "It's what I really want our officers to be doing. It's the whole crux of community policing."

The police department posted the story of Smith's interaction with the homeless woman on its Facebook page Friday afternoon. Since then, the posting has garnered almost 4,000 likes and hundreds of comments praising the officer's actions.

Smith, who doesn't have a Facebook page, said she didn't know about the post until she was told by a dispatcher. She thanked everyone for sending kind words her way.

"In this circumstance here with this woman, she literally didn't have anybody," Smith said. "You just want to do the right thing and not make anybody's life more difficult than it already is."

The officer referred the woman to various services available for the homeless in Lake County. The woman told her she planned to go to a shelter in Waukegan.

Smith has received a number of commendations during her 21-year tenure with the police department. Guenther said she would receive another one in recognition of her recent actions.