Watch Colo. Police Officer's Touching Talk with Distressed Runaway
A touching and emotional scene played out recently between a 9-year-old runaway and a Colorado police officer who sat on the ground and comforted the distressed child for nearly an hour.
Talking with KKTV, Colorado Springs Police Officer Craig Johnson said the department had received a report concerning a child who had run away following a disturbance at home. According to Johnson, the child had mentioned self-harming at the time.
Johnson, a father of five, quickly located the child, and the officer's body camera captured the encounter. Sitting on the ground, Johnson consoled and assured the child they were safe and not in trouble.
“At first, that person didn’t want to talk to me, and I thought they might run away," Johnson told KKTV. "I was able to talk to them and get them to stay and talk with me. … It was obvious that they weren’t at first wanting that help from a police officer.”
The two sat and talked for 45 minutes, and the child became more comfortable with Johnson. So comfortable, in fact, that the child wanted to get some in some playground time and show off their jungle gym skills.
“They said, ‘Hey, can we go play,’ and I said, ‘You promise me you wouldn’t run, and you pinkie-promise you won’t run if we go to the playground?’" said Johnson, adding that the child kept the promise.
While the child talked and played, other officers continued to work on solutions to the situation.
“Once I developed a rapport with that child, my officers did a good job of recognizing that and not coming over and disrupting that rapport," said Johnson. "But on the back end, they were doing a lot of work, speaking to the parents, arranging for medical services and arranging to take this person to an area facility where they could receive the appropriate mental health services.”
Johnson was praised for his empathy and patience in his interaction with the child. But he said these are the moments that led him to join the police force.
"I got into this profession, as did all of us, to help people, and we feel like so many days there’s negative endings to what we do in police work, and when you can walk away really feeling like you helped someone, that’s the best feeling," he said.
