Meet Justus, Puyallup’s new Chief for a Day

As students at Cascade Christian’s McAlder Campus in Puyallup gathered for Wednesday chapel last week, they found they had a few special guests.

Puyallup Police Department officers paid a visit to the school for a special announcement — 9-year-old Justus Fuccillo was selected as the department's new Chief for a Day.

Justus’s classmates cheered him on as he was recognized by Puyallup Police Chief Scott Engle.

“We are super excited to welcome him into our Puyallup Police Department family,” Engle said.

The Puyallup Police Department started participating in the Chief for a Day program in 2012. The department chooses a child between the ages of 3 and 12 that has a chronic or life-threatening illness to participate in local activities and be sworn in as an honorary chief.

“It was a way to give back to the community, a way to get involved, a way to have a connection not just with the families but the schools districts and and just reach out and try to touch someone’s life,” PPD records supervisor Nichole McNiven said. “These kids are amazing.”

Justus, a second-grader at Cascade Christian, was nominated by his teacher and her husband, who is a Puyallup police officer. He was also nominated by Engle, who attends Bethany Baptist Church in Puyallup with the Fuccillo family. Engle and Andrew Fuccillo, Justus’s father, work on the security safety team at the church.

Justus was born premature at 30 weeks and had a brain hemorrhage, which led to hydrocephalus, a condition where spinal fluid gets trapped in the brain.

“The only way to prevent the fluid from building up in the brain is to put a shunt in, and they fail often,” said Sarah Fuccillo, Justus’ mother. “Justus has had 15 brain surgeries to replace different shunts that have failed, and through that process developed epilepsy. So he deals with both of those currently.”

Approximately 50 percent of shunts fail within the first two years of placement. Justus’s first shunt only lasted a few weeks. When he was 3 years old, he had a seizure that lasted 45 minutes, and was diagnosed with epilepsy.

Through it all, Justus developed and kept a bright attitude, Sarah Fuccillo said.

“He is always smiling and he’s very caring and compassionate,” she said. “He’s so excited (to be Chief for a Day). We told him and he’s been counting down the days for this.”

As Chief for a Day, Justus gets to lead this year’s Daffodil Parade.

“That will be Chief Justus's first official duty... He will actually get to get out on the street and shake some hands and meet some people,” Engle said.

He’ll also participate in the annual tree lighting ceremony and attend the statewide Chief for a Day event Aug. 16.

“They’ll basically go out to law enforcement Disneyland,” McNiven said. “They have outside demonstrations, like canines. You name it, it’s pretty much there.”

At his school last week, PPD presented Justus with a backpack full of goodies, including a PPD beanie he put on right away.

“Thank you everyone for introducing me,” he told police.

While Justus’s family never knows when the next brain surgery might be, his mother said Justus is doing well. He’s even a candidate for epilepsy surgery.

“It’s a procedure where they actually disconnect and sometimes remove the parts of the brain that are causing the seizures,” Sarah Fuccillo said. “It’s quite scary so we’re just praying about it.”

The department is looking forward to getting to know more about Justus, Engle said.

“We’re super excited to have Chief Justus be the new police chief at the Puyallup Police Department, and we’ll all be taking our orders from Chief Justus from here on out,” he said.

This story was originally published March 20, 2018 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Meet Justus, Puyallup’s new Chief for a Day."