text: DELAWARE COUNTY, Ind. (WISH) – An Indiana man took a selfie with an Indiana State Trooper to send a message. That post has gone viral with more than 447,000 shares. 
   
   It happened during a traffic stop along State Road 332. 
   
   “It’s been awesome just to see how just a simple interaction on a Friday in Muncie, Indiana, has touched so many people,” Greg Barnes said. 
   
   It started as Barnes sped to his Muncie home and passed an Indiana State Trooper. 
   
   “Immediately I knew I was in the wrong,” Barnes said. 
   
   The lights went off and Barnes pulled over. The trooper said there was nothing memorable about the traffic stop. But that changed as he came back to hand the driver a warning, and after talking for several minutes, Barnes decided to ask the trooper if he’d take a selfie. 
   
   Barnes took it to show kids that not all police interactions are bad. 
   
   Trooper Shawn Cosgrove told our sister station in Indianapolis why he agreed to take a selfie. 
   
   “Because of what he was wanting it for,” Cosgrove said. “I thought that would be a great moment, especially nowadays when there is tension all around the nation when it comes to policing.” 
   
   It wasn’t just the photo, Barnes posted a message: 
   
   We can continue to fight against each other until we are literally ‘black and blue’, or we can show one another the respect we inherently deserve, not as ‘black man’ and ‘blue police officer,’ but as humans.” 
   
   “It made me feel like our interaction could help people and children,” Cosgrove said. 
   
   “I think that’s the only race that should truly matter, the human race, and just us showing respect for one another in that interaction, that’s what lead to this,” Cosgrove said. 
   
   Although the photo has sparked conversation, Barnes knows it won’t work every time he decides to race home. 
   
   “I don’t think I’ll be able to use that one again if I get pulled over,” Cosgrove said. 
   
   Both say the reason this interaction went so well was the respect they showed each other. Troopers said it may not get you out of a speeding ticket, but it can make the situation go a lot easier. 
   
   Here’s the rest of Barnes message: 
   
   I was pulled over today for speeding. The officer did not know me nor did I know him, but we each showed one another a mutual display of respect in our interaction. He was doing his job, and I had made a mistake in trying to hurry home to get started moving that lead to our path’s crossing. He ran my information, and in the end we talked more about how are individual days were going, and the situa tions and circumstances within our society that have lead to interactions such as he and I’s to play out much more negatively, some even deadly, than ours, than we talked about the situation that lead to him pulling me over. In the end we both thanked each other for our mutual displays of respect and agreed to take a ‘selfie’ together to help tell our story.” ||||| MUNCIE, Ind. — An African-American man’s selfie is going viral after he snapped a picture with a white police officer who had pulled him over for speeding. 
   
   Greg Barnes Jr. of Muncie, Ind., uploaded a photo to Facebook Friday. In it an officer is leaning in Barnes’s car, smiling, and the man is sporting a similar grin. Barnes wrote in his post that the officer had pulled him over for speeding — but the encounter was nothing short of diplomatic and respectful. 
   
   Wrote Barnes: 
   
   The officer did not know me nor did I know him, but we each showed one another a mutual display of respect in our interaction. He was doing his job, and I had made a mistake in trying to hurry home to get started moving that lead [sic] to our path’s [sic] crossing. 
   
   Barnes added that after the officer ran his information, the two began talking about each other’s days, and then delved into a deeper discussion about how other encounters similar to theirs have ended with hostility, even death. 
   
   “In the end we both thanked each other for our mutual displays of respect and agreed to take a ‘selfie’ together to help tell our story,” Barnes wrote. 
   
   He then went on with a powerful final paragraph, writing that no one should jump to conclusion’s on one’s race or profession. “Neither of us are the enemy,” Barnes wrote. 
   
   Added Barnes: 
   
   We can continue to fight against each other until we are literally ‘black and blue’, or we can show one another the respect we inherently deserve, not as ‘black man’ and ‘blue police officer’, but as humans. None greater, none less. 
   
   He then ended his message with one simple hashtag: #Respect. 
   
   Barnes’s post has since garnered hundreds of likes and nearly 500,000 shares on Facebook. Read his full post below:
target: – Greg Barnes was in a hurry to get home on Friday, so when he saw police lights behind him on State Road 332 in Muncie, Indiana, "immediately I knew I was in the wrong," he tells WISH. What followed was "a simple interaction" that has touched hundreds of thousands of people. Police officer Shawn Cosgrove, who is white, chatted with Barnes, who is black, after running Barnes' information and handing him a warning. The talk turned to negative and even deadly police encounters, and Barnes asked if the two could take a selfie; the officer agreed. "I thought that would be a great moment, especially nowadays when there is tension all around the nation when it comes to policing," Cosgrove says. "It made me feel like our interaction could help people and children." Barnes posted the photo to Facebook in a post that's been shared some 465,000 times as of this writing. "The officer did not know me nor did I know him, but we each showed one another a mutual display of respect," Barnes writes. "Neither of us are the enemy. We can continue to fight against each other until we are literally 'black and blue,' or we can show one another the respect we inherently deserve, not as 'black man' and 'blue police officer,' but as humans. None greater, none less." WGN points out the hashtag Barnes ended his post with: #Respect. In a subsequent Facebook post made on Sunday, Barnes added, "Together, we, the only race that matters, the human race, can all make this world a better place than we found it." (This guy took a different kind of selfie with a police officer.)