Ed. Note: The following is a news release provided by the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station.

A 55-year old homeless man was reunited with his possessions on Tuesday after he lost his backpack at the Wal-Mart in Stevenson Ranch.

The backpack, most likely containing the individual’s livelihood, held a wallet containing his identification and important papers. The backpack was found by Wal-Mart store employees, who then turned it over to the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station.

As part of normal station procedure, a found property report was completed and the case was assigned to Detective Brad Thompson who handles all of the Station’s Found/Lost Property reports.

Through his investigation, Thompson was able to discern that the backpack belonged to a local homeless man.

The detective knew that the contents of the backpack possibly could have been the man’s only belongings and he knew how important it was to try to locate him.

Thompson had a Be On the LookOut, or B.O.L.O., flyer designed with the man’s picture and then proceeded to have the flyer distributed to all station personnel.

Detective Brandon Painter, of the Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Station Robbery Team, received the B.O.L.O. flyer on Tuesday afternoon and set out in his patrol car with a mission to find the man pictured on the flyer so that this individual could be reunited with his property.

Thinking about the bad weather, Painter’s first stop was at the local homeless shelter, but the man was not there. Not giving up, he continued driving around the streets of Santa Clarita actively searching for the man.

Painter’s persistence paid off, as he was driving down one of the main thoroughfares of Newhall, he spotted a man getting on a bicycle and turning a corner.

In the few seconds that he caught a glimpse of him, he noticed that the gray-bearded man was wearing a hat with black sunglasses exactly like the man that was pictured on the B.O.L.O. flyer.

He immediately turned on his patrol car’s colored lights and gently followed the man around the corner to a side street. The man, seemingly unaware that the patrol car was behind him, continued riding his bicycle.

In a further attempt to grab the bicyclist’s attention, Painter briefly put on his car’s siren.

Hearing the sound of the car’s siren alerted the man to notice that there was a patrol car behind him. The man stopped on his bicycle, undoubtedly puzzled as to why he was being stopped.

As Painter approached him, he noticed the uncanny resemblance of the man riding the bike and the man on the flyer and at that point, he knew he had found the right person.

He asked the man, “did you lose a backpack,” to which the man responded yes.

The detective proceeded to tell him about how a honest store employee turned his backpack into the Sheriff’s Station and that the backpack was there waiting for him to go pick it.

Despite the rainy weather and dark clouds in the sky, the sun was figuratively shining that day in Santa Clarita. The “day was made brighter for someone else” thanks to the combination of some honest store employees coupled with the teamwork of some diligent detectives.