A Windward police corporal with 10 years of service was awarded the Honolulu Police Department’s second-highest honor Nov. 14 for her determination, compassion and bravery in locating an elderly woman over the summer.
In August, Cpl. Michael Lemes was searching the Hulupala Place neighborhood in Kaneohe for a missing elderly woman with dementia when she heard a voice coming from the mountains behind Hulupala, police said.
Lemes followed the voice and, after hiking down a steep trail and searching the mountainside for three hours, located the frightened woman, police said.
Police Chief Louis Kealoha presented Lemes, who has been with HPD’s Windward district since 2009, with the Silver Medal of Valor at HPD’s quarterly awards ceremony at Windward Mall.
Certificate of merit recipients were:
» Officers Samuel Bain and Richmond Casabar of the Pearl City district, who apprehended a robbery suspect who fled from them and fired a weapon at them in Waipio in July.
» Officers Bernadine Canite, Christopher Chung and Hwa Jin Kim of the Downtown-Chinatown district, who prevented a teenage girl from committing suicide in June.
» Officer Hayden Schmidt, who prevented a woman in the University area from committing suicide in August.
Officer Keoni Hong of the East Honolulu district was selected employee of the quarter for outstanding service. He helped with 35 major cases that resulted in 80 arrests, saved a suicidal man, taught law enforcement at a local university and volunteered as a firearms safety instructor.
The 14-member Human Resources Division was named unit of the quarter for planning and coordinating two police funerals under stressful conditions.
