ZIONSVILLE, Ind. — A good deed that many people might call above and beyond the call of duty was all in a day’s work for a police officer in Indiana recently.

Calls from national media have flowed in to the police department in Zionsville, just outside Indianapolis, since the story of Officer Nick Smiley providing groceries for a woman and her children after the kids’ stepfather was arrested and charged with child neglect became public.

Smiley has declined the interviews, he told the Zionsville, Indiana Times-Sentinel, because he didn’t help the family for the publicity.

“I don’t think I did anything any decent person wouldn’t have done,” Smiley said. “I think a lot of officers — especially in our department — do things for people all the time, and it goes unrecognized.”

Smiley arrived at an intersection near Zionsville, where a fellow officer, Cody Martin, had found a 2002 Monte Carlo with its hazard lights flashing — parked in the turning lane near the intersection. Martin, unable to see inside, had opened the driver’s side door and discovered a baby asleep in a car seat in the backseat.

Within 10 minutes, the baby’s stepfather returned to the vehicle and told the officers he’d run out of gas and gone looking for help in a nearby neighborhood. The 28-year-old man told the officers he left the baby in the car while he went for help because it was cold outside. Temperatures were in the mid-teens with a subzero wind chill that day and, according to court documents, the car’s interior was cold, but the baby’s hands were warm.

“The thing that baffles me is that he had a working cellphone,” said Rob Knox, chief of the Zionsville Police Department. “Why he didn’t call us — or someone — for help, I don’t know. Instead, he left the child unattended in a cold vehicle on the side of the road, where it was a traffic hazard.”

Officers added gas to the car, but it wouldn’t start. The vehicle was eventually towed.

The man waited in Smiley’s patrol car with the baby while Martin contacted the local prosecutor, according to Smiley’s incident narrative. The baby, age unknown, was upset, so Smiley played Dory videos to help calm her down.

Martin placed the man under arrest after speaking with on-call Boone County Prosecutor Erica Dobbs. He also called the local Child Protective Services hotline.

“Officer Smiley transported the baby back to the mother’s residence in Kirklin, Indiana, then drove to Walmart in Frankfort, Indiana, and purchased some food for them,” Knox said, adding there were other children in the home.

Smiley said when he got to the Kirklin home with the baby and talked to the mother, he learned the man who was arrested was supposed to be buying groceries for the family with gift cards. With no car and no gift cards, the woman had no way to feed the family dinner. So Smiley asked if he could pick up food or have something delivered. After learning that no restaurants delivered to that area, he asked what he could get them at the grocery store and where the nearest one was located.

When the woman said the kids like cheese pizza, Smiley asked if that’s all they needed. The woman replied that she could use a loaf of bread and that would take care of their immediate needs. So Smiley drove to the Walmart in Frankfort — about 30 miles away — and picked up three cheese pizzas and a loaf of bread.

“They seemed excited they were getting pizza,” he said of the kids.

Smiley said his act of kindness was simply the right thing to do. He said the vast majority of officers do similar things all the time.

Knox said he’s proud of all his officers.

“I’m very proud of what Officer Smiley did,” Knox added. “It speaks volumes for his character.”

McCann writes for the Zionsville, Indiana Times Sentinel.