It worked! A rare public plea by a judge to find a loving home for a child stuck in residential treatment led to a joyful adoption for 14-year-old Napoleon "Polo" Scott.
That Milwaukee County judge, Christopher Foley, presided at the hearing Friday and, as is his custom, invited Polo to wear a black robe, sit in the judge's chair and bang the gavel to make his own adoption official.
"It feels excellent," said the boy, who smiled nonstop but was too media-shy to say much more, except to thank his new family and the small army of case managers and child welfare workers present in Children's Court.
His pops, as Polo calls him, is Don Carlos Scott Jr., 53, who responded to Foley's plea in my column last year and added the boy to his family of three grown biological children, five foster children, and another boy, Hakeem, 15, whom he adopted two years ago.