Birmingham, Alabama — When those blue lights appeared in the rearview mirror of her car about two years ago, then 20-year-old Abbie Rutledge knew she had done the wrong thing at the wrong place and time. But that all changed after she spoke to the trooper who pulled her over.
“I think it was the right person, right time, and the right words said,” Rutledge said.
She told J.T. Brown — the Alabama state trooper who pulled her over in August 2022 for speeding — that she couldn’t afford a ticket. She was broke and in a dead-end job.
“And I told her, I said, ‘Well, how about we talk about it then,'” Brown told CBS News.
Rutledge said their conversation “went on for about” 10 to 15 minutes, “just talking about different career paths.”
Their conclusion was that Rutledge would make a great nurse. So Brown let her off with just a warning . And on it he wrote, “Promise me you’ll go to scrub or nursing school, and slow down, and I won’t give you a ticket.”