What is the person missing?

Dont get me wrong, when people go missing the role of the police is vital but the role of the people who report the person missing is vital too. When someone is reported missing a police officer has to ask a number of questions which assess at what risk the person is at. If these questions are answered incorrectly then we have an issue.

I recall one incident that occurred whereby a local care home brought some of their patients to our town for a day out. The patients had all sorts of illnesses from Alzheimer's to Parkinson's. They spent all day wandering the sights when we received a phone call saying that one of their patients had gone missing is the last 5 minutes.

Officers went to meet them and ask the usual questions to assess risk, how were they feeling, essential medication etc. It was deemed that as the male patient, we will call him Mr. Grey, was a long time sufferer of a severe case of dementia, that he would be high risk. This was also due to him being 92 years old!!

Officers on scene began to glean details from the carers of possible places he may go, people he may see. Whilst other officers searched the area in patrol cars and on foot armed with photographs copied from the carers. A couple of vital pieces of evidence were passed to us from the carers "He isn't great at walking and wouldn't be able to walk far at all" and "He doesn't even remember his name!" This was great as it shortened out search boundaries in the first instance. We began to check local shops and restaurants as it was thought he may sit down in there for a rest.

After about 30 minutes of searching we received a phone call from a chip shop about 3 miles away from where the male went missing saying that they had a confused old man in their shop. This guy matched the description of Mr. Grey and so officers went to the shop.

The result of this was that this male was in fact Mr. Grey who stated he used to live in the area and that this was his favorite chip shop and so he walked quite easily the 3 miles for some chips after giving his carers the slip. He said he knew where the bus he came on was and was going to go back once he was done. Moral of the story? Never underestimate what a human can do and never say never to a police officer as it only makes you look like a fool.