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Last year, 2,600 missing person reports come across Sgt. Reno Rushford’s desk — 50 cases a week for Rushford and his team of two officers in the Ottawa police Missing Person unit to investigate.
Each one is assessed individually and prioritized to determine how best to respond. It may be an elderly man with dementia who needs medication, a toddler who wandered away from the park or a teenager in a group home who is a chronic runaway.
“Being missing is not a crime,” Rushford said. “It’s not like we’re looking for someone who’s committed a crime. We’re looking for someone to ensure their safety and that they’re OK.”
Whether police make a public appeal for help is up to the missing person’s family or, in the case of a child in state care, the agency that is providing the care.
“We’ve got some kids that go missing three or four times a week. We have the regulars that are reported missing Friday — because the group homes have to file a report if they break their curfew — and we know that Sunday night at midnight they’re going to come home again.”
In the case of “Dawn” — a 14-year-old Indigenous youth who ran away from her group home in Ottawa — Rushford said Ottawa police checked out 27 tips that came in after her name and photo were released to the media.
“When the tips come in, we act on them. We’re obliged to act on them,” Rushford said.
“If someone says they saw someone on a couch in a crack house with two needles in their arm, then that urgency goes way up. But if they’re down behind the McDonald’s sending messages and texting friends on the wifi and meanwhile I have 15 other missing persons on my board. … It’s just a matter of where I’m going to use my resources.”
But sometimes, the missing person doesn’t want to be found, certainly not by police.
“I tell my guys, ‘If you ever get a call to check out an address, please make sure there’s two of you, so you can cover the back. These kids are going to see you coming from 50 yards away and they’re going out the back door. If this child wants to be found, they’re going to talk to the first officer she sees.”
In Dawn’s case, police did get a tip that she’d become involved in the sex trade. Investigators from the Ottawa police Human Trafficking unit worked with their counterparts in Gatineau to search for her, but didn’t find her, Rushford said.
He bristles at criticism that police treat cases of missing Indigenous people different from anyone else.
When we have a missing person report come in … everyone is treated the same. What is the urgency? What are the risk factors? It’s got nothing to do with the colour of anybody’s skin. People will say, ‘Oh, she’s native, so they’re not going to look for her. Nothing is further from the truth.”
bcrawford@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
Each one is assessed individually and prioritized to determine how best to respond. It may be an elderly man with dementia who needs medication, a toddler who wandered away from the park or a teenager in a group home who is a chronic runaway.
“Being missing is not a crime,” Rushford said. “It’s not like we’re looking for someone who’s committed a crime. We’re looking for someone to ensure their safety and that they’re OK.”
Whether police make a public appeal for help is up to the missing person’s family or, in the case of a child in state care, the agency that is providing the care.
“We’ve got some kids that go missing three or four times a week. We have the regulars that are reported missing Friday — because the group homes have to file a report if they break their curfew — and we know that Sunday night at midnight they’re going to come home again.”
In the case of “Dawn” — a 14-year-old Indigenous youth who ran away from her group home in Ottawa — Rushford said Ottawa police checked out 27 tips that came in after her name and photo were released to the media.
“When the tips come in, we act on them. We’re obliged to act on them,” Rushford said.
“If someone says they saw someone on a couch in a crack house with two needles in their arm, then that urgency goes way up. But if they’re down behind the McDonald’s sending messages and texting friends on the wifi and meanwhile I have 15 other missing persons on my board. … It’s just a matter of where I’m going to use my resources.”
But sometimes, the missing person doesn’t want to be found, certainly not by police.
“I tell my guys, ‘If you ever get a call to check out an address, please make sure there’s two of you, so you can cover the back. These kids are going to see you coming from 50 yards away and they’re going out the back door. If this child wants to be found, they’re going to talk to the first officer she sees.”
In Dawn’s case, police did get a tip that she’d become involved in the sex trade. Investigators from the Ottawa police Human Trafficking unit worked with their counterparts in Gatineau to search for her, but didn’t find her, Rushford said.
He bristles at criticism that police treat cases of missing Indigenous people different from anyone else.
When we have a missing person report come in … everyone is treated the same. What is the urgency? What are the risk factors? It’s got nothing to do with the colour of anybody’s skin. People will say, ‘Oh, she’s native, so they’re not going to look for her. Nothing is further from the truth.”
bcrawford@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
