What?!?!?

This past Saturday, a 14-year-old boy spent about 5 hours on duty with the Chicago PD after having successfully convinced officers at one station that he had been transferred there from another precinct. I swear I am not making this up:

The boy, who has been charged as a juvenile with impersonating an officer, walked into the Grand Crossing (3rd) District station, 7040 S. Cottage Grove Ave., dressed in a Chicago police uniform, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said. The boy, who reported for duty about 1:30 p.m., partnered with another police officer for about five hours.

The boy identified himself as an officer from another district but was detailed for the day to Grand Crossing and also was savvy enough to sign out a police radio and a ticket book, according to a source. The source also said the boy went on traffic stops with the officer he went on the street with....

Police described the boy as a former "police explorer," which means he was part of a community program run through the police department's Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) that allows youth to interact with Chicago police officers. He was part of the explorer program in 2008 in the Englewood (7th) District.

That last part I bolded because it is too funny to miss -- he'd participated in a program designed to increase interaction between (at risk?) youth and police officers. Technically, I suppose, his is a success story of sorts -- you can't have much more interaction with police officers than actually working as one.

Be sure to check out the linked article from the Chicago Tribune for video of the press conference in which the young man's actions that day are described, and this NPR interview with a Tribune reporter where it is revealed that the youth "had a great love of police [and] had been watching COPS for years." Unbelievable...