Gardena police union 'adopt' family in need

GARDENA - Some Gardena police officers have gone above and beyond their duty to make sure a 5-year-old girl battling a rare disease has a stable environment, it was reported today.

Michelle Hensley suffers from a rare pancreatic disease called nesidioblastios, and thanks to big-hearted cops, she and her father no longer live in a van, and have at least three months of rent, toys, clothes, cookware, donated food and a DVD player, the Daily Breeze reported.

For a little girl who suffers through seizures, liver failure, brain damage and severe retardation, the blessings were almost missed because she and her dad were living in a van somewhere in California, and the officers did not know where to find them.

A member of the Gardena Police Officers Association first heard of the Hensleys through a report made by a fellow officer in August, the Daily Breeze reported. When the Hensleys' story spread to the rest of the association, they decided to locate and help the family.

But after three months of fruitless searching, the association began to lose hope. "We were on the verge of picking another family,'' Gardena police detective Edward Arao told the Daily Breeze.

"I got off the phone from human services saying `Eh, we didn't have any luck finding Mike (Hensley), let's move on,''' he told the newspaper.

But something told Arao to try the VA one last time.

"Out of the blue I called,'' Arao said. "They answered and said Mike was standing in front of them.''

Within an hour, the Hensleys were inside the Gardena police station. By the end of the day, the officers found an apartment for them, and the officers decided to "adopt'' the family for a year.

Since December, they've celebrated Michelle's 5th birthday and bought balloons and cards for her on Valentine's Day.

"It takes a village to raise a child,'' Gardena police Sgt. Russ Temple told the Daily Breeze. "It takes partnerships, people helping people, the whole community coming together to pull a person help.''

Mike Henley had liquidated his middle class possessions and used all his money to fly to the Philippines to retrieve his daughter, who had been illegally taken there by her mother for spiritual treatment for the disease.