Marysville police officer gets Oval Office shout-out

Marysville Police Officer David Negron was certainly not seeking fame or national recognition when he performed a simple and routine good deed on the Fourth of July.

The policeman was performing his rounds when he noticed a flag outside of a house that had slipped and was touching the ground.

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“No flag should be touching the ground, so … I just stopped and grabbed the flag, I tried to fix it for them,” he explained to KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson.

When he realized that the holder was broken and he would be unable to set the flag back up, he rolled it up and stood the flag against the side of the house. Negron considers himself patriotic and wants to make sure the flag is displayed with respect and pride.

“It’s a great country we live in; we’re all lucky to live in this country,” he said.

The homeowner, Ben Rieman, saw the gesture on his home security camera and was so appreciative that he shared the video online. The rest is a testament to the power of viral internet sensations.

“It probably had something to do with the fact that it was the Fourth of July and everyone is feeling really patriotic this time of year,” Negron said.

The video was passed around so much on social media that it soon caught the attention of Seattle news outlets.

But the real surprise came over the weekend, when none other than President Trump posted the video of Negron rolling up the flag on his Instagram. For Negron, spending the weekend away from social media at a lake with his family, hearing how far his service action had spread in such a short time was mind-boggling.

“To be able to say that our president, the president of the United States, posted something on his social media page about it, even though to me it seems like a really simple gesture … that was awesome,” he said.

Although the president routinely makes the news for posting inflammatory tweets, in this instance, Negron has nothing but thankfulness for Trump’s social media post.

“He’s always going to have his controversial moments, but he is our president — and I was more than grateful that he said something about it,” Negron said.

The Marysville officer remains humble about the incident, insisting that what he did was nothing but a normal act of kindness.

“It’s just those little things that we should all do for our neighbors anytime, whether you’re wearing a uniform or not,” he said.

And although some parts of the country experience tensions between law enforcement and residents, Negron said that he is very glad to work in Marysville, where police officers experience overwhelming positivity.

“We have a great community in Marysville,” he said. “We’re lucky — our community really supports our law enforcement.”

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