Miss. Trooper, Penn. man have chance encounter that changes everything

When Mississippi Highway Patrol Trooper Jason Ales and Mike Powers of Pennsylvania met on a Mississippi highway earlier this week, neither of them knew it would change both of their lives, and maybe the world.

The two first saw each other when Powers was speeding in the Batesville area, headed to a work appointment. Ales pulled him over and wrote him a routine speeding ticket.

"When I went back up there to take it to him, he asked how are things going with us down here in Mississippi with all the shootings going on with officers all over, and I said, 'They’re going, we’re maintaining, it’s rough and it’s kind of scary,'" Ales said. "He said, 'I'm keeping y'all in my prayers, we're pulling for y'all.' Then he asked, 'Can I give you something?'"

Powers gave Ales a bracelet. It seemed simple enough, covered in Christian symbols, but it was the pebble in the water. Ales said it struck him that he had pulled Powers over to give him a ticket, but Powers had still expressed respect, so he voided his ticket. In a world where there has been so much negative sentiment expressed recently against law enforcement, Powers had done something kind.

"I actually thought about that the whole day, this guy… I told my brother and my wife about it. I pulled over in a church parking lot, trying to find a spot to put this bracelet in my patrol car, and I picked a place up high, and it reminds me I'm protected," Ales said. "I know that the bracelet is not my protector -- I know where my protection comes from -- but that bracelet gives me some reminder every day."

It's also a reminder of the large number of people who still support police, he said.

Powers donated the money he would have spent on the ticket to the Palmer Home for Children. They sent him a photo of several children holding a sign that says, "Thank you!"

Those were the initial, and the obvious blessings in the situation. But it went much, much deeper than that, Powers said, as he recalled the night before the fateful meeting.

He was in his hotel room and he was watching the news, Powers said, and he was thinking about all the horrible things going on in the world. He said he started pouring his thoughts out in prayer.

"I explained to God all the things in the world that I’m afraid of and all the terrible things I keep seeing, and I begged him to please don’t give up on us, because there are so many people out there who are still going to do the right thing, their messages just aren’t heard, their voices are silent because there are people in the media and people in politics that just want to divide everyone," he said. "I begged God, I said, 'Please let me know what I can do to help. Please let me be a messenger for whatever it is that you want people to know.'"

The next morning, his boss sent him to a different location than originally planned for work. That’s where he and Ales crossed each other’s paths.

"You can say this didn’t happen for a reason if you want to, and that’s fine, because I’m not going to push my beliefs on you, but you can’t convince me otherwise because I know how hard I prayed last night and how much I hoped God heard what I had to say about 'Please let us fix the world,' and he gave me a chance today, I think," Powers said in a video he posted on Facebook on Wednesday.

Ales said the idea that the meeting was an answer to such a humble yet powerful prayer leaves him in awe.

"That is awesome – that makes me feel so humbled. God is alive, he’s alive and well, and he’s still in the blessing business," Ales said.

"I’ve been struck with so much emotion in all of this. I didn’t do anything that warrants this much attention, just asked another human how his day was going, told him I supported him, and gave him a bracelet," Powers said. Yet it resonated with so many people.

The Facebook video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, and the post Powers put up on Wednesday has been shared thousands of times. Both Powers and Ales said they're hearing feedback on the situation from all over.

"I only saw two negative comments on all the posts," Powers said. "One guy said, 'This will do nothing,' and some lady responded, 'It already has.' The likes on her simple comment were through the roof."

Since he's been home in Pittsburgh, Powers has visited a friend who is facing a terminal illness.

"I told him the story, and he said to me, 'This is what God put us here for, to build things up and help people, not to destroy,'” Powers said of his friend.

The bracelet encounter has bonded Ales and Powers in a way they didn't know it could, as well. They have been texting each other since the encounter, and are coming up with ideas to keep the positive momentum going.

"I’ve made a lifelong friend out of it," Powers said. "We spoke last night about starting a charity and selling bracelets and using the money to give to the families of fallen officers."

Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com. Follow @TRex21 on Twitter.