Michael Mochizuki has been bugging me to cover the Honolulu Police Department quarterly awards. Not just me — he’s been issuing challenges to local media to cover the good things that HPD does, not just the dysfunctional stuff that has come out of the department of late.

I mean, he’s right. There should be a realistic balance, or at least more of a mix. But something about regularly reporting regular awards tends to take the specialness out of them. So we do and then we don’t and then maybe we do again.

Mochizuki has a special aloha for HPD. In 1964, Honolulu police officers saved his father during an infamous violent robbery at a Honolulu supermarket. One officer died saving Mochizuki’s dad. Mochizuki has been grateful ever since.

So I went to Wednesday’s ceremony at the McCoy Pavilion at Ala Moana Regional Park. After all, the department has a new chief, and this was her first awards ceremony.

The focus was not on Chief Susan Ballard, though, and that seemed partly of her design. It was about what happened at the Marco Polo fire.

On July 14, while firefighters battled the 7-alarm blaze at the Kapiolani Boulevard high-rise, police officers were there, too, not only securing the area and controlling traffic, but going into the burning building to pull people out.

Officer Keola Kopa was one of the first on the scene. He and the rest of District 7, second watch, gathered information from terrified neighbors gathered outside the building, came up with a rescue plan and went running toward danger to help people who couldn’t make it out on their own. Kopa was hit with falling debris as he raced to find an elderly woman on the sixth floor. He carried her all the way down the stairs to safety.

Then, he went in again and again. Many of the police officers there that day went into the burning building multiple times. They’d bring someone out and then turn around and charge back up the stairs. Everyone in Kopa’s unit was honored for their bravery, but Kopa was singled out.

Kopa was told there was a man on the 20^th floor who was hearing impaired and who would not hear the alarms. Kopa took off up the stairs again. He reached the man’s apartment through the thick smoke and found the man asleep, unaware. Kopa woke him up, got him dressed and brought him down the stairs, all 20 flights.

Kopa’s wife and three young children watched as he crossed the stage to receive the Warrior Gold Medal of Honor, the highest award given that day, reserved for an officer who performed a deed of “outstanding bravery and at the risk of the officer’s life.”

I wondered how his children felt knowing what their dad had done.

One of Keola Kopa’s sons had a hydroflask with him under his chair. The water bottle was decorated with sticker letters that spelled out, “Ola would go.”

That’s how they felt.

As for Michael Mochizuki, he was at the event, as he is just about every quarter. Usually he brings lei for all the officers. This time, he was there for just one. His son, Officer Grant Mochizuki, received the Bronze Medal of Merit for talking a suicidal man off the railing of a 9-story parking structure. It was the second time in Grant Mochizuki’s career that he was honored for saving a life. His father is proud, though his debt of gratitude remains. Michael Mochizuki will be at the next HPD quarterly awards ceremony with lei for every award recipient in honor of the police officers who once saved his father’s life.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.