Alvin Williams' summer is pretty much over.
The 5-year-old can't run around with his friends. Instead, he sits in a folding chair on the front porch of his grandfather's house off York Road in North Baltimore, his broken right leg wrapped in a cast and propped up on another chair.
His leg was broken when a Baltimore police cruiser ran over it last week.
This week, a top department officer, whose command includes boats in the harbor and the detectives who investigate traffic accidents, paid Alvin a visit.
Lt. Col. Michael J. Andrew brought chocolate cake that his wife had made, Adam Jones and Matt Wieters bobbleheads, a patch that made the child an honorary police officer and the promise of tickets to an Orioles game.
Andrew leaned down over the boy and shook his hand. "OK, A.J.," he said. "You probably don't like police right now, but the officer didn't mean it. We're buddies."
Alvin neither smiled nor uttered a word, but he did free Adam Jones from his box and play with the sports figurine. His grandfather, Clarence Lowe, was happy for the attention but frustrated over the accident and his inability to learn any of the details.
"You're the only one who has called me back," the 55-year-old Lowe told Andrew, who has spent 37 years on the force.
It's been another tough few days for Baltimore police. Over the weekend, Andrew's investigators dealt with two police chases that ended in fatalities — one a woman whose car was hit by a vehicle being pursued by police and the other a motorcyclist who died while being chased from Baltimore to Cockeysville. The officer involved in the accident with the motorcycle has been suspended after officials said he didn't follow orders to break off the pursuit.
Alvin was struck four days earlier, on July 20 at about 8 p.m.
It was a hot Tuesday night and he was playing with neighbors. His grandfather said he was following a girl who ran across Sheridan Avenue. She made it. Alvin did not. Police say he darted from between two parked cars and was struck by a cruiser that had turned off York Road. They said the officer never saw the boy until it was too late.
Andrew said Alvin struck the rear quarter panel of the cruiser, fell to the pavement and had his leg run over by a back tire. Lowe said he was told by witnesses that Alvin hit the front part of the car, fell and was run over by a front tire.
Police said the cruiser was going slowly. Lowe said the cruiser was "going at a good speed" and that the officer was distracted because he was looking for somebody.
The discrepancies raise questions for which Lowe is demanding answers. He said he called police and got the runaround, was told it was the child's fault and that there was nothing more to say.
Andrew told him the investigation isn't done and that he would call him when it is. He gave Lowe his business card and cell phone number.
The police commander then gave Alvin an oversize orange Orioles shirt — "you'll have to grow into it," Andrew told him — along with the bobbleheads and other trinkets.
Alvin moved to Baltimore from Augusta, Ga., just a few weeks ago, ahead of his mother's planned move to the city. His grandfather is his only relative in Baltimore, and the boy doesn't have health insurance. Lowe said he's just waiting "until the bills start coming in."
The cake, the shirt, the player figurines and the police patch won't get Alvin up and running again, and it won't make his grandfather any less driven to find out precisely what happened on Sheridan Avenue.
But too often people like Lowe demand answers and are shut down without good reason. Andrew apologized to Lowe for the way he was treated and apologized again to Alvin for being run over by the police car.
It doesn't mean Andrew acknowledged that the officer was at fault. He believes at this moment that the accident was a mistake, caused by the child darting into the road. But that shouldn't mean that Alvin and his family get brushed off, or that the Police Department can't apologize without admitting guilt.
Sometimes, just a few simple words can go a long way toward mending hard feelings. They are words not uttered nearly enough.
Said Andrew to the little boy: "I'm sorry it happened, buddy."