Dr. Frank Kardasz (Ed.D)

Lake Worth officer honored again for saving girl

From Palm Beach Post Staff Reports, Thursday, May 25, 2006

Lake Worth police Sgt. Mike Hall was honored at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., today for pulling an 8-year-old girl out of a trash bin where she'd been buried for seven hours.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others presented Hall with a 2006 National Missing Children's Law Enforcement Award. The girl and her mother also attended the ceremony.
Hall had already been honored in Washington earlier this month by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He won one of three National Missing Children's Awards for his successful efforts in the girl's recovery.

U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fort Pierce, who nominated Hall for that award months earlier, presented the officer with a plaque commemorating his efforts alongside the girl and her mother. Police say the girl was snatched from her home last May by Milagro Cunningham, 17, a friend of her family's. She was then taken to an abandoned landfill and left for dead. Nine agencies joined in the search for the missing child, which ended with Hall and Palm Beach County sheriff's Cpl. Bob Cresswell finding her covered by rocks and broken concrete in a yellow recycling bin. Cunningham is charged with attempted first-degree murder, sexual battery and other felonies in connection with the case.
Cunningham immigrated to the United States illegally from the Bahamas and had been arrested twice before but was never deported. Foley called the recovery an exemplary case - one that showed the value of getting information about missing children out quickly and having multiple enforcement agencies work together in the searches.

"That's the good news about missing children today," Foley said earlier this month. "No longer do you have to wait for days or hours for a lead. People get out on the field."

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