April 11--A 6-year-old girl with a rare form of cancer died over the weekend, days after Chicago's top cop honored her wish to be a police officer by visiting her home and presenting her with a badge, a uniform and medal of valor.
Madison Pruitt died Sunday, a year after she was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer that attacks muscle tissue, according to the family.
The girl's family said she had always dreamed of becoming a police officer. Last Wednesday, interim police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and dozens of officers -- some on horseback -- lined up outside the girl's home on South Union Avenue in Gresham to welcome Madison as the department's newest junior police officer.
Officers from the nearby Gresham District gave her a police officer's cap, certificates of recognition, a police shirt, a badge and a baton. One officer presented her with a medal of valor he had won.
The event was to have taken place at the police station, but Madison was too ill to make the three-block trip.
Chicago police Sgt. Ernest Spradley, who works out of the district and was at the Nelson home to honor the girl, said an estimated 75 officers happily hustled over to the home, eager to fulfill the ailing child's request.
"When a little 6-year-old girl says she wants to be police that kind of restores faith, even in our profession, because there are little boys and girls who want to grow up and who want to do what I do because it's a noble profession," Spradley said.
