Cop who spanked boy gets punished himself
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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.
She said that before the spankings began, she and Roberson agreed he would take on the role of big brother and mentor to her son, who has been diagnosed with emotional and mental problems. The boy's biological father lives in another state.
"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."
Roberson and the mother say that because of their agreement, Roberson did not violate state law when he spanked the boy.
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."
Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske acknowledges that Roberson was well-meaning. But he said public perception of police officers is important, and Roberson created a potential liability for the city and the police department.
Although no department policy prohibits spanking a child, that kind of physical discipline is not acceptable police work, the chief said.
"A kid having problems can be very complex, and diagnosis and treatment requires far more training than any police officer has," Kerlikowske said.
The spankings started May 13, 2002, when the boy was 8, and continued through June 2003. The boy is now 10. His mother said he has matured and his behavior has improved in the past two years.
Kerlikowske disciplined Roberson for misuse of authority in December 2002 for spanking the child twice while in uniform. Roberson was suspended for two days. In July 2003, he appealed to the Public Safety Civil Service Commission, which upheld the punishment.
While testifying during the appeal, Roberson admitted he started meeting with the boy again in 2003 after being punished by the department. He said he spanked the boy at least three more times that year.
Roberson said the circumstances were different in those spankings because he was off duty and not wearing his uniform. Nonetheless, in February, Roberson was suspended for five days for failure to obey orders. The police officers guild has filed an appeal on his behalf.
Roberson declined to comment for this story, saying he didn't want to compromise his current appeal. But he said "nothing's changed" from the argument he made during his first appeal before the public-safety commission.
Tapes of that hearing, along with police-department disciplinary records, were released last month to The Seattle Times under the state's public-records acts.
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.
The mother testified before the public-safety commission that she approached at least eight agencies for help. The boy spent some time at the Seattle Children's Home, a mental-health facility for youth.
Cheryl Brush, a Seattle police community-service officer with more than a decade of experience with runaways, was assigned to the boy's case in early 2002.
She extensively documented the boy's behavior, contacted Child Protective Services and twice pulled together the boy's mother, teacher, counselor and other social-service providers for meetings.
Brush suggested "wraparound services," in which the state pays for a full-time, around-the-clock aide for kids characterized as society's least-manageable.
But the mother said most of the professionals didn't have good answers and were pressuring her to institutionalize the child. She said she didn't want to break her family apart.
Meanwhile, the boy's behavior was starting to keep officers from more pressing issues, said Sgt. Cindy Granard, who supervised patrol in West Seattle. And officers were becoming increasingly frustrated chasing the boy around the Puget Sound area.
A police report from May 12, 2002, the day before the boy was first spanked, describes what happened when officers found the boy after he had run away.
Officers contacted the county's juvenile detention and were told the boy was too young. Next, they called a juvenile crisis residential center in Seattle and were told the boy needed to be at least 12. Then they called the Department of Social and Health Services and were told DSHS is not a detention center.
After making a few more calls, officers took the boy home and dropped him off with his mother.
"My take on it, the kid was just bored," said Officer Shawn Swanson, who now works for the Federal Way Police Department. Swanson described the boy as "sharp," with advanced verbal skills.
"Any other kid would be satisfied riding his bike around the block," Swanson said. "This child is different. He had to go to the mountain."
Roberson testified before the public-safety commission that he met the boy in February 2002, while on patrol. During the next few months, he talked to the boy and his mother and became concerned about the boy's safety and the mother's mounting stress.
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.
Roberson testified: "I told (the boy) any time you feel like you're gonna run, give me a call. ... I treated this child as if I was treating my own child. I told him there were consequences for doing bad and rewards for doing good. I told him I would punish him for running away from home."
On May 13, 2002, the boy ran. The call went out over the police radio, and Roberson was dispatched to find the boy. He rounded him up, returned him home, and "I put him over my knee and I gave him four swats on the rear," he told the public-safety commission.
The mother and Swanson were both in the room. Roberson told his sergeant, Granard, about what had happened. But Granard didn't tell anybody else and was eventually disciplined for it.
On May 16, 2002, the boy ran away again. Roberson was working an off-duty security job at a nearby Safeway. He told the dispatchers that he knew the boy and said he'd take care of the situation.
He testified that he drove the boy home in his personal vehicle, sat him down and explained that when he ran away, dangerous people might harm him.
Then he spanked the boy again, five times, hard enough to make the boy cry.
"Then I stood him up and told him, 'Now, do you understand why this happened? Is this gonna happen in the future?' " Roberson testified.
On May 18, 2002, Roberson was called into his lieutenant's office and told that somebody in the department — not Swanson — had filed a complaint about the spankings. The lieutenant told Roberson to stay away from the family.
Roberson argued before the public-safety commission that he had done nothing wrong. He said the department charges its police officers to be independent thinkers.
"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."
Michael Ko: 206-515-5653 or mko@seattletimes.com