A Karen Called 911 Claiming I Was Faking My Paralysis To Steal A Parking Spot. The Officer Ignored My Purple Heart And Ordered Me To Stand Up Immediately. Then He Reached For My Wheelchair, And Things Took A Terrifying Turn.

The Family Arrives

Janelle Travers arrived at 2:47 p.m. Someone from the crowd—she never learned who—had also called the Kroger manager, who had called the number on Travers’ account. She pulled into the parking lot in her Honda Pilot, Marcus still strapped in his car seat in the back, confused about why they had left the birthday party early.

The ambulance was gone. The crowd remained. The police cars remained. The wheelchair remained empty, sitting beside the accessible van—a visual accusation. She saw Mendes first, then Hendrickx, then the scattered groceries, then the empty chair.

“Where’s my husband?”

She was running before Mendes could respond.

“Ma’am, Mrs. Travers…”

“Where is he? What happened?”

Mendes intercepted her before she could reach the scene.

“He’s been transported to Medical City Plano. He’s conscious and stable.”

“Why? What did you do?”

Mendes’s body cam captured her face: terror, fury, the particular anguish of someone who had already watched her husband survive one catastrophe and couldn’t understand why he was facing another.

“There was an incident. Officer Hendrickx…”

Janelle saw him standing near his patrol car, silent. She moved toward him with a speed that Mendes couldn’t intercept.

“What did you do to him?”

“Ma’am, please calm down.”

“Calm down? You pulled my husband out of his wheelchair! He’s paralyzed! He was paralyzed saving another soldier’s life!”,

“There was a complaint. A complaint…”

“Someone complained about a disabled veteran shopping for groceries? Ma’am, he’s a war hero. He has a Purple Heart. He spent 14 months at Walter Reed learning to live in that chair.”

Harold Washington, the Vietnam veteran who had stayed, stepped forward.

“Ma’am, I saw everything. Your husband identified himself. He showed his pin. He offered documentation. The officer refused to listen.”

“He what?”

“He pulled him out of the chair. Your husband hit the ground. His legs…”

Harold couldn’t finish. Janelle turned back to Hendrickx. Her voice had dropped from a scream to something quieter, something worse.

“My husband shielded a younger soldier with his body when an IED exploded. He absorbed the blast that would have killed them both. Two of his friends died 10 feet away. And you pulled him out of his wheelchair because someone called 911?”,

Hendrickx said nothing.

The Investigation

A supervisor’s vehicle pulled into the lot. Lieutenant Katherine Ross, 15 years on the force, assessed the scene in seconds: the empty wheelchair, the scattered groceries, the woman confronting her officer, the crowd with phones still raised.

“Officer Hendrickx, step away from the civilian.”

“Lieutenant, I was responding to a call.”

“Step away. Now.”

She approached Janelle with the deference that the situation required.

“Ma’am, I’m Lieutenant Ross. I’m going to need a full account of what happened here. And I’m going to need to secure all evidence.”

“Evidence of what?”

“Of whatever my officer did. Starting with his body cam.”

She turned to Hendrickx.

“Your badge and weapon. Now.”

“Lieutenant…”

“That’s an order. You’re relieved of duty pending investigation.”

The crowd watched as Hendrickx surrendered his badge, his weapon, and his authority.

Karen Whitmore, the woman who had made the 911 call, was still in the parking lot, standing near her Lexus, watching the aftermath of her 43 seconds of certainty. Ross noticed her.

“Ma’am, are you the one who called this in?”

“I… Yes, I thought…”

“Stay where you are. I’ll need your statement.”

The body cam footage was secured within the hour: both officers’ recordings, Kroger’s security cameras, and phone videos from at least seven bystanders. The investigation that followed would prove what the footage suggested: this wasn’t a mistake; it was a pattern.

Officer Tyler Hendrickx had accumulated 14 complaints in six years: excessive force, discriminatory conduct, failure to follow procedure. Twelve had been dismissed through departmental review. Two had resulted in brief suspensions. Each complaint had been dismissed—insufficient evidence, officer’s account differed, pattern not recognized.,

His social media accounts filled in the picture: posts mocking “fake cripples” and “welfare warriors,” comments on news articles about disability fraud claiming “half of them are scammers,” and membership in online groups where users shared videos of people caught faking disabilities.

The 911 call from Karen Whitmore was examined separately. Dispatch records showed no basis for her report. She had admitted to the operator that she hadn’t witnessed any actual crime, just a “feeling” that the man didn’t belong. Her call history revealed a pattern of her own: six 911 calls in three years. A Black family suspiciously moving into a house, a Hispanic gardener possibly casing homes, a teenager in a hoodie who “didn’t look right.”