By Hillary Davis
Las Vegas Sun
LAS VEGAS — The newest, youngest member of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department put on her pink mirrored sunglasses and walked to her patrol car while blasting K-pop.
She needed to get pumped because there was a criminal to catch —a doughnut thief.
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Emma Soto, a 7-year-old cancer survivor, got her wish to be a police officer for a day with Metro.
She took down and handcuffed “suspects,” toured the valley in a helicopter, joined the SWAT team in clearing a “house” in a simulated village at Metro’s training center, and called out her movements over a radio under the call sign Moana-1 as she scoured the streets for the “robber” known as the Sprinkles Bandit.
Emma was diagnosed with leukemia at age 3. Her father said there were times when he thought she might not make it. Four years later, she trains in jiujitsu and really does want to be a police officer, once she’s old enough.
“It’s a great job because I want to save people and catch robbers,” she said.
Make-a-Wish Nevada made “Officer Soto’s” big day happen. Initially, Emma wanted to meet Moana, the Disney princess, in Hawaii. Then she thought about how fun it would be to build a jail.
Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill and a parade of officers, including a K-9, were happy to host Emma and her family at the Joint Emergency Training Institute in northeast Las Vegas.
They outfitted her with a uniform and belt, which held handcuffs, a nonfunctional dummy pistol, Taser and canister of pepper spray (that didn’t actually shoot electricity or the inflammatory chili pepper compounds).
They showed her how to give verbal commands to suspects, restrain and bring down uncooperative subjects and put them in cuffs. They strapped her into a black-and-white Metro helicopter and took a quick pass over the city.
The highlight was going after a “wanted man” called the Sprinkles Bandit.
After a briefing — she needed to be on the lookout for a man about 6 feet tall, driving a silver sedan, known to be a serial robber who demands doughnuts with sprinkles — she took a flier with the bandit’s photo and put on the pink shades to match her field training officer, who drove the patrol vehicle.
After scouring the simulated village, she and her partner spotted the bandit as he attempted to eat the evidence.
“Lots of tough cops go out there and do the hard work that they do every single day in our community, and I think you’re our greatest recruit that we’ve ever put through here yet,” McMahill told Emma, who stood on a box to be at eye level with Clark County’s top cop.
“Half her life is fighting cancer,” he said. “Think about what kind of courage that takes.”
Her dad, Max Soto, accompanied her on her day as an officer. He rode in the helicopter beside her and was one of the people she handcuffed.
“She is probably the strongest person that I know,” he said. “She has shown me a lot. There’s been lessons that she has shown me that she will never know.”
Scott Rosenzweig, president and CEO of Make-a-Wish Nevada, said the state chapter of the global organization granted 180 wishes for Nevada children and hosted 80 kids from out of state last year.
“Wish Kids” have critical, life-threatening illnesses, but many go on to have normal adult lives.
He said studies show that children who get their wishes granted have better outcomes. They are more likely to stick to their treatment plans, require less medication and get healthier faster after getting the surge of hope and joy.
“We are not the last wish so many think,” Rosenzweig said. “We are a lasting wish.”
It was the organization’s 3,000th wish granted in Nevada since the state chapter’s founding more than 40 years ago and an echo of the greater organization’s first wish granted in 1980, when a 7-year-old leukemia patient in Arizona realized his dream of becoming an honorary police officer.
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