Officer Keao Fessenden-Grace, a recent police recruit, was recently honored as Officer of the Month for May 2022 by the Aloha Exchange Club of East Hawai‘i.  Fessenden-Grace  played a pivotal role in locating a missing five-year-old autistic girl just minutes after she was reported missing.
 
On April 29, 2022, police responded to a report of a missing child in the Puna subdivision of Ainaloa. The child’s parent reported  that their daughter was missing from their home and was last seen wearing unicorn print rainbow pants and pink t-shirt.

Around the same time, Officer Fessenden-Grace was at his residence getting ready for work when he heard the sound of a bell and a child’s voice coming from his neighbors’ house across the street. As he was leaving he saw a young female child, about five years old wearing a pink shirt and pink pajama pants, standing on his neighbor’s front porch.  While heading to work, Officer Fessenden-Grace activated his department-issued Mobile Data Terminal (MDT) and an active call appeared on the MDT screen about a missing child in his neighborhood with the same description as the child he had just observed.

Officer Fessenden-Grace conducted a U-turn and proceeded back to his neighbor’s house while notifying dispatch that he believed he located the missing child. As he approached the residence, he saw the child had left the front porch and was walking in the neighbor’s front yard.   Safely located, the young girl was returned to her parents unharmed in less than 30 minutes. 

HPD Photo