Six-year-old boy calls the police after his father runs a red light

The father apologised for running the red light - and for bothering emergency dispatchers

Chris Collins/Getty

Although a six-year-old Massachusetts boy is not old enough to join the police force quite yet, he already seems determined to get his law enforcement work underway.

Quincy, Massachusetts, police posted audio of a 911 call made by the child, Robbie Richardson, after he says his father went through a red traffic light on the way to the car wash.

“My daddy went past a red light. He has a black truck,” young Robbie tells the dispatcher in the recording. “We had to go to the car wash and then he went past the red light.”

The dispatcher asked that the boy put his father, Michael Richardson, on the line.

“I apologise,” he said, laughing nervously before telling the dispatcher there was no emergency.

According to the Boston Globe, Michael tried to explain to his son that it is sometimes acceptable to make a right turn at a red light in many US cities.

Although Robbie was not in trouble for making the non-emergency 911 call over the weekend, his mother, Joleen, said they had to explain to him the importance of calling the line only in the event of an emergency.

“We talked to him, and told him you can only call in an emergency,” she said. She explained to the Globe that she had taught her son how to properly call 911, but “I didn’t think he was going to call like that.”

With public safety first in his list of priorities, Robbie knows that next time his father runs a red light he is not going to bother emergency dispatchers with such small offfences.

“When my daddy goes past a red light again, I’ll call the eye doctor,” he said. “So he can fix his eyes.”