ARLINGTON, TX (WCMH) — Arlington police officer Eric Ball is getting a lot of attention after he caught a teen smoking weed.

It’s what he did after that’s receiving a lot of praise.

“One thing that my department pushes is for us to have compassion, and kind of think outside the box,” Ball said.

Ball was working another job at a movie theater when someone told him a man was smoking marijuana near the entrance. He told the person to come over, and saw him drop something.

“He said he had been smoking marijuana, but it wasn’t a usable amount. I just wanted to kinda teach him a lesson, to use that situation as a learning tool.”

Ball gave the teen a choice.

“He was real respectful. So I told him you have two options: he could go to jail or he could give me 200 push ups.”

So, the teen dropped to the concrete, and a passerby filmed it for Facebook. 

The young man told Ball he learned his lesson.

Later, the teen’s mom came out looking for the officer.

“She actually thought I was nice because I only made him do 200,” Ball said. “She said he should’ve done 1,000.”