By Michael Ko, The Seattle Times
By the time Seattle police officer Richard Roberson met him, the 8-year-old boy was known around West Seattle as a real troublemaker. He ran away from home so often his mother sometimes had to handcuff her wrist to his.
The boy would hop on Metro buses without paying and take off to places such as Enumclaw, Everett, Issaquah and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. One time, he tried to get to Mount Rainier. Another time, after his mother hid his shoes, he was found wandering downtown Seattle — in roller skates.
“For some reason,” Roberson would say later, “I felt after seeing this child, I felt there was some reason I needed to step in.” So the officer became a father figure, helping the boy with homework, taking him to movies and even giving him his work cellphone number.