MOUNT DORA, Fla. – A Mount Dora boy got a special surprise from local law enforcement after writing letters to his favorite superhero for months.
Aiden Simon, 9, was speechless when the Mount Dora Police Department and the Lake County Sheriff's Office showed up at his house Friday afternoon.
Aiden's mother, Lindsay, said he had been writing letters to Spider-man for the last eight months, telling Spider-man he wants to help him fight crime.
She said Aiden would leave the letters in the mailbox for the mailman, each of them reading "Dear Spider-man."
"I would check the mailbox and i was like, 'Oh they took it, it's not in there anymore and we'll see what happens.' Every day, (I) was checking to see if Spider-man wrote back," Lindsay said.
The mailman saw the letters and noticed they didn't have stamps or an address, but he would take them back to the post office anyway.
Workers there read the letters and contacted local law enforcement to get in on the surprise of bringing Aiden a letter from Spider-man himself.
"That's how I grew up," Sgt. Jim Vachon of the Lake County Sheriff's Office said. "I knew when I was little I wanted to do police work. It's nice to know that's continuing. We need kids like him that want to grow up and protect other people."
Deputies gave Aiden his own badge and showed him around the armored SWAT truck. Aiden explained why he wants to fight crime.
"If there's no more villains, then the whole world would be great and then there would be nothing bad in the community," he said.
"I'm shaking still," Lindsay said. "He deserves it. He is a really good kid. This means so much more to us then they could ever know."