15-year-old Dylan Golden got a chance to fulfill his dream of becoming a police officer Tuesday in St. Joseph with the help of local law enforcement officials.
“About 10 years,” Dylan said.
That’s how long he said he’s wanted to be a law enforcement officer.
Dylan was diagnosed with CHARGE Syndrome and battles a number of problems related to the disease. Retiring St. Joseph School District Principal, Mike Otto said he first met Dylan when he was attending school at Oak Grove Elementary. Dylan is now attending home school because of his condition.
“I followed him ever since he left elementary school and he’s got a lot of challenges in life. He always talked about police. He wanted to be a police officer” Otto said. “I called my good friend Joe Herrera who’s an SRO (School Resource Officer) with the district and Joe took it from there.”
Officer Devin Kallauner with the St. Joseph Police Department took his patrol car over to meet Dylan Tuesday afternoon at Oak Grove Elementary. Dylan was unaware of the activities planned for the day at the time. Kallauner said when the officers learned about Dylan several weeks ago, they got together to try to figure out what they could do.
“We put our resources together and came up with what we did today,” Kallauner said. “I took him for a ride. We were going to Word of Life, he didn’t know what all was here. We pulled in and when he saw all the squad cars and people in uniform and the BearCat he got really excited.”
Law Enforcement Officers from the St. Joseph Police Department, Buchanan County Sheriff’s Department, Special Response Team, School Resource Officers, Traffic Unit and others came out to participate in the event at the Word of Life Church parking lot. Dylan was made an honorary officer by Police Chief Chris Connally, he was bestowed with uniform shirts from both the police department and sheriff’s department with his name on them, took a ride in the BearCat (Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck), and got a chance to sit on a police motorcycle with the sirens blasting.
Dylan said his favorite part about being an officer is, “Chasing the bad guys.”
In response to the surprise Dylan said he wanted to thank the officers.
“Thank you,” he said. “I enjoyed it a lot.”