When a man told the host at a chain restaurant in Homestead, Pa. that he didn’t want to sit near four policeman having dinner at their regular table, one of the officers paid the couple’s $28 bill, and left a $10 tip. He wrote the couple a note on the check telling them he’d pay the bill and thanking them for the support.

Eat N’ Park server Jesse Meyers told WTAE News (video interview in the link), “A table goes to sit down and the guy looks over at one of the police officers and was like, ‘Nah I don’t want to sit here.’ So they got moved completely opposite, away from the police officers.”

Officer Chuck Thomas took note, and said, “It’s okay sir. You won’t have to worry about it, we won’t hurt you.” The man stalked away. Thomas and a fellow officer decided to pay the couple’s bill. The note scribbled on the check reads: “Sir, your check was paid for by the police officers that you didn’t want to sit next to. Thank you for your support. I left a $10.00 tip too.”

“Essentially the whole goal of it was to let him know that we’re not here to hurt you, we’re not here for that,” Officer Thomas told the reporter. “We’re here for you. We work for the public. And we just want to better the relationship between the community and the police.”

Thomas, who is black, said that in Homestead, “Tensions in the community were tight. A lot of people were coming up to us and shaking our hands and thanking us, but you could just feel tight air through the community.”

Homestead, a small city just south of Pittsburgh, is just over half black. The median family income is a little over half the national median and a quarter of the people in Homestead live below the poverty line.The town has a place in American history as the site of the Homestead Riots of 1892, when Henry Clay Frick used Pinkerton detectives to break a union in his steel mill, and the detectives killed 11 workers.

“Things did end positively here,” said the station’s reporter. As one of the officers left, “that man looked over, shared a quick laugh, and thanked him.”