DIMING OUT DAD
6-year-old calls 911, says pops ran a red
When little Robbie Richardson saw his dad drive through a red light on their way home last weekend, the 6-year-old Quincy boy, who dreams of one day being a cop, warned him that he was going to report the apparent traffic violation to the police.
And though his father, Michael Richardson, says he tried to explain to Robbie that he simply made a legal right on red at the intersection of Furnace Brook Parkway and Copeland Street, the youngster kept his word and dialed 911 as soon as he got back home.
“My dad went past the red light,” Robbie told the Herald outside the family’s Piper Street home yesterday. “Red means stop, green means go, yellow means slow.”
Robbie — who wants to be a police officer when he grows up — says he learned the traffic light rules in a kindergarten class at Lincoln-Hancock Community School and knew to call 911 because the numbers are written on the side of his favorite miniature police car.
Michael Richardson said he had just fired up the family’s backyard grill Saturday evening, when his son came bounding out of the house and handed him the phone. The voice on the other end was a Quincy dispatcher.
“He hands it to me and I look at the display and said ‘911’ on there and I was just like, ‘Oh no,’ ” Richardson said with a laugh. “I just started apologizing, what else am I going to do?”
Quincy cops posted audio of the amusing 911 call on their Facebook page yesterday.
In the minute-long audio recording, Robbie can be heard diming out his old man, saying: “Daddy went past a red light. He has a black truck but it was in the brand new car, my mommy’s car.”
When the officer asks him, “What happened?” Robbie replies: “He had to go to the car wash and then he went past the red light.”
Robbie’s mom, Joleen Richardson, said she is proud of her son — who enjoys playing basketball and football, and does mixed martial arts — and is amazed at how much attention his 911 call has received.
“He has good manners, he learns a lot about bullying and helping people with the martial arts,” Joleen Richardson said. “He is very outgoing, very caring, he definitely has an imagination.”
Robbie says he wants to be a police officer because he wants to “stop robbers.”
When asked if he also wanted to stop people from running red lights, Robbie lit up and said: “Yeah!”
And though he never thought in a million years his son’s 911 call would become front-page news, Michael Richardson said he is glad the story is putting a smile on people’s faces.
“The news today, it’s all misery,” Richardson said. “If people want to have a good laugh at my expense, hey, I am all right with that.”