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RCMP make Christmas special for teen

Thirteen-year-old Joshua Stockton received a great surprise Christmas morning, when RCMP showed up outside his home in Airdrie to take the police-obsessed teenager for a ride in one of their vehicles.
Joshua Stockton
Joshua Stockton, 13, sits inside an RCMP vehicle during a surprise visit from police Christmas morning 2018.

Thirteen-year-old Joshua Stockton received a great surprise Christmas morning, when RCMP showed up outside his home in Airdrie to take the police-obsessed teenager for a ride in one of their vehicles. Stockton, who has Down syndrome, was thrilled by the experience, according to his mother, Margaret.

“The smile on his face – there was nothing to describe it. It was pure joy,” she said. “He doesn’t know how to fake stuff, so what you get from him is real. That smile was so joyful.”

The RCMP member showed Stockton how to turn on the lights and siren, she added, which he quickly picked up. He was then taken on an approximately fifteen-minute ride around Airdrie and onto Highway 2.

Stockton’s obsession with all things police began in the summer of 2018, according to Margaret, and carried through to the fall. He dressed up as a policeman for Halloween, which delighted his classmates at Windsong Heights School.

“He had the badge and the hat, a walkie-talkie, handcuffs on his belt – everything but the gun,” she said. “They just loved it at school and they were so supportive of him there. They were calling him Officer Stockton.”

Stockton was adopted at the age of two by Margaret and her husband Walter, who have a long history of fostering children – more than 70 kids have passed through their home throughout the past 18 years. Currently, they are caring for a seven-month-old, a one-year-old and a two-year-old.

Stockton is the only foster child they’ve adopted in all those years, Margaret said. She began visiting him in the hospital not long after he was born, as he waited to have surgery to repair a hole in his heart.

“He was just so needy of someone to love him,” she said. “We couldn’t imagine our lives without him.”

When asked what he would like for Christmas, Margaret said Stockton, who is mostly non-verbal, indicated he’d like a police car. A remote-controlled police car was duly purchased; however, Margaret’s oldest son, Christopher, decided to go one better and arrange for RCMP to stop by Christmas morning.

“I didn’t know. It was a total secret,” Margaret said. “Christopher made a connection with the RCMP and they agreed to let [Stockton] get a ride in a real police car.”

After getting over the shock of seeing an RCMP vehicle and an officer outside her home, Margaret said she was overcome and started crying, amazed by the kindness of RCMP and her eldest son.

“The RCMP said they’d be thrilled to be part of this and that made us feel even better. The officer was amazing,” she said. “[The RCMP officer] was smiling as broad as [Stockton] – he looked like was having the time of his life, getting to do this for [our son]. The gentle and respectful nature he had with [Stockton] was unbelievable.”

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