One of Their Own: Police Searching for Missing Officer Michael Hopton

Sept. 16, 2009— -- Police in Rhode Island are searching for one of their own after Glocester Police Officer Michael Hopton disappeared in a rural state forest he knew well.

Hopton, 47, left home Saturday and was reported missing Sunday morning after he failed to show up for his midnight shift. Searchers later found his car parked at Pulaski State Park where police and Hopton's family said he often went to exercise.

"We sit here and ponder," his father Francis Hopton told ABCNews.com. "And we just do not know."

Hopton, who was married with one daughter in high school and a stepson in the Marines, had been with the Glocester Police Department for three years. Francis Hopton said his son had retired as a captain from the nearby Smithfield Police Department after 20 years there. After a brief stint at a law career, Michael Hopton decided to get back into police work, his father said.

Rhode Island State Police Lt. Colonel Steven O'Donnell told ABCNews.com that a witness said he saw Hopton walking around in the park Saturday morning, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, not workout clothes.

O'Donnell said Hopton is believed to have been carrying his drivers license and his police-issued gun.

His car key was left in the vehicle, O'Donnell said, and his wallet and cell phone were left at home.

"We always entertain the fact that he could have faked this," O'Donnell said, referring to Hopton's disappearance. "We don't think that's the case."

Francis Hopton said his son was an avid cyclist who would often go for a ride in the park after his shift ended, but O'Donnell said his bicycle and his running gear were left at home.

Police are also monitoring Hopton's finances, but there has been no activity on his accounts.

"Right now, it's a missing persons," he said. "In these types of matters, anything is on the table."

Father Describes Missing Officer as Man Who Cherished Family, Job

Francis Hopton described his son as someone who was cherished, not only by his family, but by the children he coached on various sports teams and students at the school where he was until this year assigned as the school resource officer.

Hopton took his role at the school very seriously, his father said, going father than what was his job requirement to volunteer with sports and chaperone school dances.

"It was a great job for him," he said. "He loved it very much."

And Hopton was commended last year when he pulled teens out of a burning car, searing his arms in the process.

"He was back to work the next day," Francis Hopton said, adding that his son also put himself through law school at Roger Williams University while working as an officer in Smithfield.

Now, he said, the family is left to wonder what happened. The elder Hopton said his son was "as up as he could be" on a recent family trip to Paris Island to watch his stepson graduate from the Marines.

The family's biggest concern now is his distraught daughter, a senior in high school, who has been out of school while the search is ongoing.

O'Donnell said that today was the first day police have begun to scale back the official search, something that will end in the coming days if nothing is found. Connecticut State Police are assisting with the search in the part of the park that spills across the state line.

"A lot of people searching," he said,"know him."