TO SWAT AND PROTECT

Cop who spanked boy gets punished himself (Michael Ko, Seattle Times, 5/3/04)

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.

And when the boy kept running, Roberson did one more thing.

He spanked him.

Roberson's actions raise a question that isn't easily answered: How far can an officer go in doing his or her job?

Roberson is appealing a recent five-day suspension without pay for spanking the boy on at least five occasions, arguing that he was trying to solve a long-term community problem with good, independent police work.

The boy's mother said she gave Roberson permission each time to spank her child. To protect the boy's identity, neither the boy nor his mother is being named. . . .

"Both prior to and after (each spanking), he explained to my son what was going on, what he was doing wrong, like any parent would," the mother said last month.

"Yes, I thought it was having a positive effect on my child because there was a male figure monitoring him. He was trying to shape up; he had somebody interested in him."

Roberson, 50, is a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army who is married, has three grown children and helped run a day-care center with his wife. He said he chose police work as a second career because he thought he could "make a difference." . . .

Specifically, state law says: "Physical discipline of a child is not unlawful when it is reasonable and moderate and is inflicted by a parent, teacher or guardian for purposes of restraining or correcting the child. Any use of force on a child by any other person is unlawful unless it is reasonable and moderate and is authorized in advance by the child's parent or guardian for purpose of restraining or correcting the child." . . .

According to his mother, the boy has emotional and mental problems, including extreme defiance to authority and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which have required counseling or medication since he was 3 years old.

She said she suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, which makes it difficult to run after her son. In addition to the plastic handcuffs — she received permission from state social workers to use them — she contemplated buying a harness. . . .

Cheryl Brush, a Seattle police community-service officer . . . , suggested "wraparound services," in which the state pays for a full-time, around-the-clock aide for kids characterized as society's least-manageable. . . .

Roberson said he conferred with his wife, his sergeant and finally the mother and decided to take the child under his wing.

"I really admire the man (Roberson), because he came forward when no one else would," the mother said last week. . . .

"Every day, someone says to you, 'Go out there and make a difference. Go out there and do this for the kids,' " Roberson testified. "I'm not a rogue officer. This is an officer who cares. If I'm going to get slapped down for caring, what's the use? That's the way I'm starting to feel about this whole thing."

Anyone who thinks that Officer Roberson did anything wrong is an imbecile. (Yes, Paul Moore, I mean you.)

Posted by David Cohen at May 15, 2004 10:14 PM