It's 9:30 p.m. on a Tuesday in February. Your 14-year-old daughter didn't tell you she wasn't coming home after school and she hasn't responded to your repeated texts. You even made chicken fingers for supper and this is one of her favourite meals. You're getting worried. What if something bad happened to her? What should you do?
Considering the police usually have a heavy workload, they may not have the resources to address a missing person's case as quickly or effectively as the reporter may hope. Therefore, before completing an official missing person's report, you may wish to try to locate them with your knowledge first.
Where should you start looking?
If someone is not responding to text messages or phone calls, their phone may be lost or damaged. Therefore, try contacting them in another manner, such as through Facebook messenger or e-mail, as these can be accessed from a computer at a public library.
Most people follow a regular routine and schedule. It may be helpful to write out a general timeline with locations of where that person may usually be found at a specific time. For example, to the best of your knowledge, your 14-year-old daughter was at school from 8:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Who are her friends and what are their schedules? Is she dating a boy who is a basketball player and you know there is a regular basketball practice on Tuesday from 3:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. You could contact her boyfriend and ask if she attended his practice.
What other locations may she frequently go? In the summertime, teenagers can often be found hanging out at the local park, fairgrounds, or another outside public area. In the winter, maybe she is more likely to hang out with her friends inside at the local mall or maybe the local Tim Horton's.
Parents should make it a habit to keep a list of the names and contact information of their children's friends. Contacting each friend directly to enquire if they have seen your daughter will likely give you the quickest answer. If the friend does not know, they will likely send the word through their other connections that you are concerned about her whereabouts.
By doing as much legwork yourself prior to reporting your daughter to the police as a missing person, you will greatly assist them with the case, as you are providing them with leads that they can follow.
How to file a missing person's report.
In Ontario, you can contact your local police department through their non-emergency phone number, or physically go to the station. Although movies and television often state that there is a 72-hour waiting period before the police will accept a missing person's report, this is a total myth.
For the police to prepare a search accurately, you need to tell them everything. Has your daughter ever had any mental health issues, and is there a risk that she may harm herself? Does your daughter use drugs or hang out with people who may be involved in illegal activities? Are you aware of any recent events that may have made her upset? Has your relationship been strained recently and you believe she has deliberately disappeared as an act of rebellion? Has she ever gone missing before?
According to Statistics Canada, 33% of reported missing people will be located within 24 hours and 72% will turn up within a week. However, there is a still a chance that a reported missing person will never be located.
Why do people go missing?
There are four general reasons for people to disappear from society:
1. They are physically lost or have encountered a misadventure. For example, they went hiking in a remote forest, took a wrong turn, and fell off a cliff. In this scenario, a physical search may be arranged for police and volunteers to walk the area, use tracking dogs or have a helicopter assist with the search from the sky.
After you have reported this missing person to your local police department, they will often utilize the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and the Ontario Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains (ONCMPUR) to organize the logistics of a search.
2. They are suffering from a physical or mental illness. If a pedestrian is struck by a car and taken to the hospital by ambulance, they may not necessarily have any identification on them. They could be in a coma or have amnesia so they are not able to communicate to the hospital staff. The police should have a record of any recent incidents that may have involved your missing person, so in this case, you should contact the police first before trying to phone around to area hospitals. Due to privacy laws, the receptionist at the hospital may not be able to provide you with any information and you may just be led down an unnecessary path of frustration.
Alzheimer's disease, dementia, autism, schizophrenia, an acquired brain injury or many other mental health conditions may leave people with reduced cognitive ability. If they are not in their right mind, they could unknowingly wander off and get lost. There is an organization called 'Project Lifesaver' which offers the use of tracking devices to attach to vulnerable people who may qualify for the service. www.projectlifesaver.org
3. They have voluntarily chosen to go missing. For any number of reasons, a person may be unhappy with their current life situation and wish to start a new life from scratch. Although unfathomable for some people, this is a right that every person has. In the European Union and the United Kingdom, there is 'Right to Be Forgotten' legislation that helps direct law enforcement on how to handle a missing person's case where the subject has voluntarily disappeared.
4. There is an influence of a third party and the person has gone missing against their will. Although in Ontario we may not wish to acknowledge it, human trafficking is a local reality. Indigenous women, new immigrants, the LGTBQ community, and teenage girls living in violent family situations are the most at risk of being abducted and groomed into working in the sex or drug industries. Although incredibly rare, there is also a very slight risk of someone being taken for other nefarious purposes.
What can the Police do to find a missing person?
There is a major conflicting issue that arises with a police missing person's report, in that it needs to be determined if that person is missing by choice or the victim of a crime. Does the public interest in locating the missing person outweigh the privacy interest? In 2018, the Ontario Provincial government enacted 'The Ontario Missing Person's Act' to assist the police with their ability to conduct a search for a missing person.
With granted permission from a Judge or Justice of the Peace, the police are able to access further resources to try to locate a person. For example, if it is determined that it is a legitimate missing person, the police can post a notice on the internet which includes information about this person, such as their name, their age, a physical description, any conditions that they may require medicine for, the circumstances surrounding their disappearance, the last place and time they were seen, and photos.
Why can the Police not post a notice immediately?
By publicly announcing that a person is missing, they are breaching that person's right to privacy. Once they have been located, they may be embarrassed by the incident, and this could damage their reputation. If a potential employer is researching the person online and comes across the missing person notice, this may cause them to conclude that they should not hire them due to mental health issues or unreliability. For this reason, if a missing person's notice was posted, the police are obligated to post a follow-up news release immediately upon their being located.
For the same reason, a person needs to be careful posting information on a person's social media (ex. their FB wall) and should ensure any postings are removed as soon as possible once the person is found. It is better to ask friends to assist with locating a missing person through private communications.
If someone has been reported as missing and not found within six years, then they are re-categorized as a long-term missing person. This situation is heart-wrenching for the missing person's loved ones, as oftentimes all previous leads have dried up and there is no closure. Police are reluctant to communicate regarding the matter because they have no new information, leaving the file as stagnant.
In this scenario, the online world can be helpful to keep the case alive. There is a new modern trend of armchair detectives who post YouTube videos or have websites dedicated to assist with finding these missing people. There are also many support groups for people who are coping with the disappearance of their person. These include: www.canadasmissing.ca / www.missingadults.ca / www.ccima.ca.
____________________________
Although not necessarily those who have been reported as missing Agent K Private Investigations Inc. has the resources and knowledge to help you find someone. www.agentkpi.ca
