A Wisconsin police officer is feeling the love on social media after he brightened a boy’s birthday with a McDonald’s meal and a ride in his police cruiser.
On Monday, Officer Darryl Robinson from the Green Bay Police Department was called to an elementary school where an unidentified boy hadn’t been picked up after dismissal.
When Robinson pulled up to the school, administrators told him the child’s mother was incarcerated. And, he learned, it was the child’s 8th birthday.
The school resource officer who usually handles such cases was on another assignment at the time, so with no additional knowledge of the mother’s status and only the grandfather’s number, Robinson made a call.
He had recognized the young boy from “prior contact a couple months before,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Refusing to let the boy celebrate his birthday alone, Robinson got the grandfather’s permission to hang out with him a little longer. Robinson took the boy for a spin in his police car and treated him to a birthday meal at McDonald’s.
When the GBPD shouted out the officer’s act of kindness on its Facebook page, the post blew up, amassing 11,000 likes and 1,900 shares within the day.
GBPD Captain Todd LePine said Robinson has deep roots in the area, and sympathized with the boy’s situation.
“Officer Robinson grew up in downtown Green Bay. He had some experiences as a kid, so he may have known what this child was experiencing more than another officer would have,” LePine told CNN on Wednesday.
