Aurora – The kids were scared. It was early December and their depressed mother was drunk and passed out on the couch.
Her husband had left for Mexico with another woman, and she couldn’t take the despair. The eldest of her five children, 13-year-old Luis, called 911.
Police arrived at the East Colfax Avenue apartment, which contained scarce amounts of food, no Christmas presents and no winter clothes for the children.
An ambulance took the mother to the hospital, and the kids were supervised by a friend.
Aurora police work thousands of cases like this every year – routine welfare calls that are heart-wrenching cases.
But officer David Hutchings turned this seemingly unremarkable call into an extraordinary story of giving, which earned him the Community Commitment Certificate. Hutchings and 28 other Aurora police officers were honored at the department’s annual awards ceremony Friday night.
Hutchings was at the Colfax Avenue apartment after the 911 call and saw a note on the kitchen table. It was a letter penned to Santa Claus by the woman’s 9-year-old daughter, asking for a box of colored pencils.
Hutchings, a 35-year-old Aurora native, reached for the note. But the girl snatched the letter from the table and threw it in the trash. Hutchings asked if he could have it because he knew Santa Claus.
“I asked her what else she wanted for Christmas,” he said. “At the time, I had no idea what I could do.”
Hutchings, a second-year cop in the department, learned the mother had lost her job as well as her husband. The family had no money for Christmas. And another single mother with two children in the complex was in the same predicament.
He went home and showed the letter to his wife, Amber. With Christmas near, it was too late to get social agencies involved.
Soon, Hutchings and his wife began gathering gifts for the families. They bought or donated presents. Their friends, neighbors, other officers and family members pitched in.
By Christmas, the couple’s living room was full of gifts for the two families, including new clothes, winter coats and boots, a video-game system, a bike and, yes, a colored-pencil set.
A supermarket donated turkeys. Amber stayed up late wrapping presents. Her father played Santa Claus.
Three patrol cars filled with presents and food delivered the bounty on Christmas.
“The majority of cops do want to make a difference,” Hutchings said. “Most do it quietly. They don’t do it to win awards.”
Interim Police Chief Terry Jones called Hutchings’ efforts heart-warming.
“It shows the true caring from some of our officers,” he said. “It really touched the heart. It really choked me up. He’s a good one. We are honored to have an individual like that in our ranks.”
Staff writer Jeremy Meyer can be reached at 303-820-1175 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.