The largest association of officers in Minnesota recognized a St. Paul police officer Saturday who rescued a 7-year-old girl after she was kidnapped in Cathedral Hill last year.

Officer Joseph Sauer, who was nominated for the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association’s “Police Officer of the Year,” won an honorable mention award, as did Hennepin County sheriff’s Deputy Jeff Marshall. Minneapolis police officer Brent Rasmussen received the association’s highest honor for disarming a man aiming a gun inches from the back of another person’s head outside the downtown precinct.

In May 2016, August James Ruthaferd abducted a girl who briefly wandered out of her father’s sight in the 300 block of Dayton Avenue in St. Paul, according to a criminal complaint. Sauer noticed cameras outside a charity-run boarding house about a block away on Marshall Avenue, and he and other officers went inside. Staff told them they witnessed a resident carrying a girl.

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Staffers at MPR’s music stations The Current and Classical MPR vote to unionize Sauer and officers went to the resident’s door and knocked, claiming to be staff. They could hear the man inside and, because officers could not kick down the heavy reinforced door, Sauer quickly started to remove the pins from the door’s hinges. He was able to partially get the door open, saw the girl inside and pushed the door in.

Sauer rushed to comfort the girl, who had been sexually assaulted. Ruthaferd was arrested, charged and indefinitely committed to the Minnesota Sex Offender Treatment Program in December.