Providence Officer Mark DeCecco photo
Sgt. Timothy McGann, left, a supervisor, and Officer John Reposa Jr., right, who with Officer Mark DeCecco (who took the photo) worked to replace Anissa Otero's iPad, stand by as Anissa, 8, and her mother, Raquel Hernandez, open it.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- An autistic girl slipped out of her family's apartment in Manton Heights with her iPad Sunday morning and wandered away.
Then someone stole the iPad from the disabled girl's hands.
First, Providence Officers Mark DeCecco and John Reposa Jr. returned the 8-year-old to her frantic parents.
Then they replaced her iPad.
Anissa Otero is nonverbal, and the iPad helps her communicate, said her mother, Raquel Hernandez.
The officers wanted to replace it. "It was her innocence. Her face," DeCecco said.
They told the story to Frank Ferranti, manager at the Apple store in Providence Place, who decided to donate the iPad.
The officers surprised the family with their gift Tuesday morning. "We got a Christmas miracle with her being OK," Hernandez said. "This was the cherry."