A 5-year-old boy in Florida just wanted to give thanks to his local sheriff’s office this Thanksgiving.
Billy Nolin dialed 911 on Thursday to ask Walton County Sheriff’s Office deputies to join him and his family for their holiday dinner at their DeFuniak Springs home.
“Will you come over because we are having Thanksgiving. Thank you, bye,” he said to the operator, before hanging up.
“With all the bad calls we take on a daily basis, this one was a welcomed happy call that made all of us smile,” wrote Monica Webster, the sheriff’s office’s lead communications officer, on Facebook.
The boy’s mom, Landi McCormick, told WEAR that her son confessed to her that he’d dialed the emergency number soon after doing so.
“I kind of told him, ‘You can’t do this. You only do that for emergencies only,’” she said.
When two deputies, Damon Byrd and Aaron Etheridge, visited Billy’s house to thank him for his kind offer, she said her young son began crying because he “thought he was in trouble.”
“The cops had to calm him down, so did I,” McCormick said. The deputies told Billy they were “very proud of him” and that it was great “to know someone that young was still thinking about them” over the holiday, she added.
The officers didn’t end up eating any of the family’s turkey, but they did give the boy a sheriff’s badge and let him pose for photographs inside their patrol car. While he now knows that the 911 shouldn’t be used for non-emergencies, Billy also has his heart set on becoming a cop when he’s older.
“It just goes to show that deputies aren’t just about arresting people and putting them in jail,” Corey Dobridnia, from the sheriff’s office, told the Northwest Florida Daily News.
“Billy’s call brightened all of our days, and the deputies’ visit gave Billy a Thanksgiving memory that will stay with him for the rest of his life.”