102-Year-Old Woman Achieves Lifelong Dream of Getting Arrested

Edie Simms, a 102-year-old woman from St. Louis, Missouri, has lived to see Apollo 11’s mission to the moon, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the election of 17 U.S. presidents. But until recently, she’d never seen the back of a police car.

As CNN reports, Simms had a slightly unconventional item on her bucket list: Instead of swimming with dolphins or seeing the pyramids, she wanted to be arrested. So last week, Sergeant John McLaughlin of the St. Louis Police Department teamed up with Michael Howard, executive director of the Five Star Senior Center, to make the centenarian’s dream a reality.

Simms has sewn or knitted more than 400 handmade items for senior center residents, including eyeglass cases, scarves, and socks. She had never distributed them by hand, ABC News reports, so instead of driving Simms to a nearby precinct following her faux arrest, the officers took Simms around to deliver the goods in person.

"She was so excited that she can ride in a police car and she said, 'Do you think you could put those handcuffs on me?,'" Howard told KPLR.

At the senior center, Simms handed out her crafts, posed for pictures, and participated in a game of bingo. She also made a speech about the importance of giving back. “Keep going, don’t ever stop whatever it is you’re doing, and spend some time doing community service,” Simms advised. “Sometimes the person you reach out and touch is the only person that they will talk to in a day."

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