What started as a tense traffic stop in North Carolina turned into a hug, a second chance, and what one mom calls the moment that “saved my life.”
Katelyn Ricchini says she’ll never forget the day earlier this year when Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Deputy Shawn Singleton pulled her over for speeding. “I was actually on my way to probably do something that wasn’t in my best interest,” she later told WSOC. “I had been ready to give up.”
Bodycam footage released by the Sheriff’s Office shows Ricchini’s car being clocked at 61 in a 45. “So what’s with the attitude? Just curious,” Singleton asked when she met him with frustration. Ricchini shot back: “I’m not allowed to have bad days?”
But the stop quickly shifted. Ricchini said she broke down, telling the deputy, “The anxiety is killing me. I’m clean and sober now … but I’ve always had bad incidents with cops.” That’s when Singleton said he, softened, asking, “Do you want to hug?” Her answer: “Yeah.”
The two embraced, and Ricchini opened up about moving to North Carolina to escape an abusive relationship, leaving her 5-year-old son behind so she could get sober and fight to get him back. “I never hugged a cop before,” she said through tears.
Singleton let her off with just a warning and words of encouragement: “Don’t lose that fight that’s in you.”
Months later, Ricchini, now 10 months sober, reunited with Singleton and introduced him to her son. “Look, this is one of the guys that saved my life,” she told the boy. She later reflected, “He saw my heart. And he saw that I had potential when so many people had counted me out.”
The Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office praised the interaction, writing on Facebook: “Sometimes a traffic stop isn’t just about enforcing laws, it’s about kindness that changes lives.”
Or as Ricchini puts it best: “He saw me as a person, not an addict.”
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