By Tracie Sullivan, For Iron County Today
What began as a difficult call to an Iron County home recently turned into an unexpected friendship between a young boy and a sheriff’s deputy.
When K-9 Deputy Jared O’Mealy met Nate Boorom, the boy was struggling with his behavior and the lasting effects of his father leaving the family six years earlier.
Rather than allow the encounter to end when the call did, O’Mealy offered Nate a deal.
If Nate listened to his mother and grandparents, treated his younger sister well and stayed out of trouble for one month, O’Mealy would return and take him for a ride in his patrol vehicle.
“I told him, ‘Listen, bud, I’ll make you a deal,’” O’Mealy said. “If you’re a good kid, you listen to your mom, you listen to your grandparents and you be a good big brother to your sister, I’ll come pick you up and do a ride-along with you.”
O’Mealy admits he was not convinced the offer would go any further.
Nate had other plans.
For the next month, he followed through on each part of the agreement. He helped his grandfather spread rock in the family’s yard without complaining, became more helpful around the house and improved his relationship with his mother and younger sister.
Then his mother, Tristen Lewis, called O’Mealy.
“She goes, ‘Are you still game for what you said?’” O’Mealy recalled. “And I’m like, ‘Oh yeah.’ Then she said, ‘He has been a phenomenal kid.’”
O’Mealy knew he had a promise to keep.
“I didn’t want to lie to this young man, because then how is that going to look?” he said. “So I told him, ‘Yeah, let’s make a date. Let’s do it.’”
Lewis said raising two children alone has not been easy, particularly as Nate has worked through the trauma of his father leaving shortly after his fifth birthday.
“I’m not a guy, and moms can only do so much,” she said. “He needs a guy in his life.”
When deputies arrived at her home, Lewis explained some of the challenges her son had faced. O’Mealy listened without entering the situation with his mind already made up, she said.
“He immediately was like, ‘You know what? I’m here to help,’” Lewis said. “He wanted to help me as best as he possibly could, and he’s been a great role model for him.”
O’Mealy said he recognized a boy who needed support and a positive connection with an adult man.
A father to a young son himself, O’Mealy said he has seen the distinct roles mothers and fathers can have in a child’s development. Although he has no intention of replacing Nate’s father, he believed he could offer friendship, encouragement and accountability.
“I’m not trying to be his father,” he said. “But if I can be a bud to him, if I can be his friend, I’ll do that for him until he doesn’t need it or doesn’t want it anymore.”
When the day of the ride-along arrived, O’Mealy picked Nate up at his home and explained the rules. The plan was to drive through parts of Iron County before stopping for ice cream.
During the outing, however, O’Mealy received a call for service in the Beryl area.
Nate remained in the patrol vehicle while O’Mealy handled the call. Although he became frightened when he first heard a call come over the radio, Nate followed the deputy’s instructions and waited inside the vehicle.
“He did phenomenal,” O’Mealy said. “He was a good kid to have around.”
Afterward, the pair got food and ice cream before O’Mealy took Nate home.
Nate told Iron County Today the experience was “awesome,” even though much of it was spent waiting. More importantly, he said, O’Mealy had become someone he considers a friend.
“I like him. I like having him as a friend,” Nate said.
Lewis said her son returned home excited and could not stop talking about the experience. The behavioral changes that earned him the ride-along have continued since then.
“He’s been doing more with my grandpa, he’s been doing better with his sister,” she said. “I feel like it created a more positive outlook on life and showed him that mistakes don’t define you.”
The experience helped Nate understand that his actions affect other people, including his mother, Lewis said. It has also made him more willing to listen, learn and take responsibility when he makes a mistake.
O’Mealy said hearing about those changes confirmed his belief that Nate needed someone willing to invest time in him.
“It made my whole theory behind him wanting that support confirmed,” he said. “That was what he needed.”
Although O’Mealy’s work as a K-9 deputy and member of the Iron County Metro SWAT team frequently places him on high-priority calls, he said he believes law enforcement involves more than arrests and emergency responses.
“If I can take this one kid and prevent it now, then he goes back to school, changes his attitude and becomes that more of a productive person in the community,” he said. “That helps my job in the long run.”
O’Mealy does not intend for the ride-along to be a one-time reward. He plans to remain in contact with Nate, check on his progress in school and offer another outing if he continues making good choices and earns good grades.
His longer-term goal is to help Nate reach the age when he can participate in the Iron County Sheriff’s Office Junior Deputy Academy.
“I don’t want it to be that one time five years ago and he forgets about it,” O’Mealy said. “I think it does start here.”
Lewis knows firsthand what that kind of experience can mean. When she was near Nate’s age, she participated in one of the earliest Junior Deputy Academy classes in Iron County.
“It made a huge difference for me in my life, in my endurance and being able to persevere,” she said. “I think that now that he gets to work with Deputy O’Mealy, he’s going to start to learn and internalize lifelong lessons.”
For O’Mealy, the most surprising part remains that a bargain offered during a difficult moment became something much larger.
“He actually kept his side of his promise, so then I had to keep my side of my promise,” he said. “It was worth it.”
And while Nate once considered becoming a law enforcement officer before shifting his ambitions toward marine biology, he already knows what he hopes other children will learn from his experience.
“Trust police officers,” he said. “Be kind to everybody and show love.”