It started with a wish and ended with a friendship. 18-year-old Blaize Richard, diagnosed with autism and mental disabilities, had a birthday wish of becoming a police officer for Jennings, LA when he turned 18 in July 2012. His mother, Angie Richard, hatched a plan to get him a uniform and a tour of a squad car.

Both mother and son were elated when the Jennings Police Department granted their wish. “Blaize was the happiest 18 yr old I have ever seen,” Angie wrote on the local news station’s Facebook wall.

Blaize Richard got to sit in the driver’s seat of a Jennings Police Department squad car for his 18th birthday.

The happy mother posted pictures on her Facebook wall, and a friend who worked as a dispatcher at the police department went above and beyond the call of duty. The police department put together a tour of the station and presented Blaize with a certificate and commemorative coin.

But the young man got something he had not even wished for: a police officer friend, Mike Hill. Hill visited Blaize several times, and gave him a calendar with photos of the officers on it.

“We hang out. I see him at school, the neighborhood, any chance I get we make the best of it,” Lt. Hill told KATC-TV-3. “He puts a smile on my face, and I put one on his.”

Lt. Mike Hill calls Blaize his “backup cop”.

Brianna Stansberry, Blaize’s sister, as well as Officer Mike Hill were interviewed:

“We just sit and talk and discuss movies, especially police movies, and what I do in certain situations,” Hill said in a FoxNews.com interview.

KATC-TV-3 reports that Blaize will become an official member of the police department at a swearing-in ceremony on February 2. He will get an authentic uniform and his own badge.

Mike Hill was awarded the 2012 “Officer of the Year” for befriending Blaize.