Boy reports stuffed animal missing. Rhode Island police conduct ‘search and rescue,’ send him a new cheetah toy

Matthew Diebel | USA TODAY

Police officers in America’s smallest state proved they have the biggest hearts.

When a 4-year-old New York City boy lost his beloved stuffed toy, Roger the cheetah, from the car window as his family was traveling through Rhode Island, he was heartbroken.

So, with the help of his parents, Will Ketcher of Brooklyn wrote police in the Ocean State asking if they could look for the toy.

The letter began: “Dear Rhode Island State Highway Patrol, I lost my Roger … can you please find him? … I love him”

“Roger is a cheetah,” the note continued. “He fell out of the car window on Interstate 95 South. … He is about 12 inches long. Thank you all for your hard work, and for keeping us safe.”

The letter arrived at the Hope Valley Barracks in the southwest of the state where it was opened by Corporal Lawens Fevrier, reported local TV station WPRI.

When a boy from Brooklyn asked for help, the RI State Police answered. @StephMachado has the touching story. --> https://t.co/QBqynDHi8K pic.twitter.com/etfrF0Ptls — WPRI 12 (@wpri12) June 19, 2018

Fevrier said he was touched by the note, thinking of his own young sons at home.

“I know how important it is for them to sleep with their blankets or stuffed animal,” he said. “We were all 4-years-old at one time in our lives.”

Fevrier told the station that troopers then watched out for Roger on I-95 but had no luck in locating him.

“We actually did send search and rescue out there,” he joked. “Unfortunately, it was raining and we just couldn’t find the one that he lost.”

Meanwhile, the Ketcher family had lost hope. And then a package, postmarked from Rhode Island, arrived a few months later.

“I saw the return label on the box and I couldn’t even believe it,” Stephanie Ketcher, Will’s mother, told the station.

When the family opened the package, there was a brand-new cheetah for Will — and a letter.

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“On behalf of the Rhode Island State Police, we are so sorry that Roger was lost,” the note read.

“We spent days looking for him on the highway. We couldn’t find him. We did find another cheetah walking around the highway. We stopped to talk to him. He said that he was looking for a new home in the Big Apple and we thought of you. Before we sent him to you we had to make him a Cheetah Trooper. The first cheetah trooper in the history of the Rhode Island State Police.”

Ketcher said she was moved to tears.

“There’s so much negative stuff going on in the world, we’re inundated with it. ... It’s so refreshing to have something like this happen that just reminds you that there are really good people out there,” she told the station.

As for Fevrier, he stayed strictly state-trooperish when asked why he had made the generous gesture.

“We take every case serious, whether it’s a crime scene or a letter from Will,” he said.

The new cheetah’s name is “Rhody.”