Officers Walk Alongside Woman with Dementia for a Mile to Make Sure She’s Safe

When an elderly man called police with a concern about his wife, June, who has dementia and had been missing from their home for an hour, police were quick to track her down in the hopes of bringing her home safely.

But in the case of this little old woman, she wasn’t interested in being picked up and taken for a ride just yet. Instead, she insisted on continuing her walk, and Officer David Kaufman and another officer walked with her and made polite conversation until they could ensure she was safe and didn’t need their presence anymore.

“This nice lady, she just wanted to walk. She didn’t want our help even though she really did need it, so we just went on a nice stroll,” says Officer Kaufman. “And she was conversational, just wanted to keep walking, and so we just had a nice stroll with her and got to know her a little better.”

In the video below, the other officer’s body camera footage shows officer Kaufman walking alongside June and talking about her past career as a nurse, where she claims she made $90 per hour. Officer Kaufman kindly goes along with everything she says, not concerning himself with her perspective on reality but only with her safety and happiness.

“It never helps to correct a person, especially if they’re not wanting police involvement,” says Officer Kaufman. “So yeah, I just let them go, I let them talk. If there’s a nurse out there that makes $90 an hour, well that’s amazing.”

The officers walked with June for about a mile before she finally agreed to get in their cruiser to be taken home. But everything was on her terms, and the officers waited patiently for her to be ready to go.

Officer Kaufman says he cares a great deal about calls like this one. He always thinks about his 81-year-old dad whenever he hears about someone with dementia who might be in trouble.

“Folks see the world through different lenses,” he says. “My father is a very happy person with dementia. We put those kinds of calls on par with lost children, where it’s all hands on deck, we need to go find this person. The weather was beautiful that day, so that wasn’t a concern, but she’d been out for an hour, and based on where we eventually found her and where her house was, she’d walked a couple of miles.”

See more of this touching story in the video below.