Another police question

[Alpo]

Watching a Castle rerun. 5 years ago their dead body was a missing person. And they keep harping on how her husband waited a whole day before reporting her gone.

 

I've read many cop stories where the police told the concerned families that they could not even report them missing until they had been gone 24 hours.

 

These two things don't jibe.

 

So what is the official way of looking at it now? If my wife was supposed to get home from work at 5:00 and it's 9:30, would the cops want to hear about her being "missing"? If I came home from work to an empty house and no smell of supper cooking, and the neighbor said she drove off at 2:30 that afternoon, would the cops be interested to hear that she is "missing"?

 

is there an official time that you are supposed to wait before you report somebody missing?

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

As far as tv is concerned it’s whatever makes the story work.

[Alpo]

I am UNDERSTAND where the television makeS stuff up all the time. My question was not about television.

 

My question was about current police procedure.

 

Used to be, 40 years or more back, your kid disappeared and the cops would tell you, "don't worry, he's probably just 'run away', but he'll come home when he's hungry". And they would not even take a report until the kid had been missing 24 hours. Then Adam Walsh was killed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Adam_Walsh

 

Now you report a missing kid to the cops and it's an immediate Amber Alert.  So if you did not report your kid for 24 hours, the cops would be pissed at you.

 

But this question is about adults.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

You want to run away and you’re wondering what kind of head start you’ll have?

[Muley Gil SASS # 57795]

A lot depends on the individual police agency, their policy and the circumstances.

 

Retired law dawg.

[Smoken D]

Back when I was on our dept. you waited 24 hours on an adult. Now a kid was different. The responding district officer being suspicious of the disappearance would call the Sgt. and the both would determine to immediately file missing person and we would do what is now called the amber alert. Every available car would respond and begin the search. This was back in the early 70's. One time when I did one found the kid behind the local 7-11. Store owner said that a man entered the store with the kid and she told him about the search going on. He left the store and hid the kid behind the store and took off. Child was unharmed. By the time I got him home the news media was all over the place. Returned the kid, me and the Sgt. got out of there. Wasn't our thing and off I went for the next few hours on reports.

Now I should say with an adult if there was a violent occurrence present, that would be filed immediately.

[Utah Bob #35998]

As stated, it depends on policy and procedures of the local department and state laws.

[Cat Brules]

Alpo,

My thinking is that police would (in a real situation) probably put out an alert of sorts (really, a “be on the lookout”) for her car/license number, but likely won’t get real serious about it for 2-3 days, unless they find her car, and don’t find her.  
 

I think they will, maybe 3 days in, assign her “case” to senior officers to investigate.  My guess is that cases such as these don’t receive a lot of attention going in, unless there is some indication of “foul play”.  Their line of thinking initially is likely to be that it’s a family dispute, unless there’s some reasonable indication otherwise.

 

Cat Brules

[Black Angus McPherson]

Tangent Alert

Speaking of missing kids, I had about 4 or 5 reports of missing kids during my time as a LEO.  In each case the first thing we did was conduct a thorough search of the house and the area around it.  "Yeah, I know you just looked in that room, but I'm going to check it out anyway"  Luckily every kid was found unharmed either in the house or close by shortly after the search started.  I found one kid ~6 hiding in his parents closet.  He was asleep buried under a huge pile of clothes.  Another was sleeping in a car in the garage.  Others were playing with neighbors and just hadn't told mom or dad where they were going.

 

Adults?  Depends on the situation.  Again, never had one that was legit.  It was always a case of "I went out with some friends after work" or some such.  It's surprising how many people want to file a missing report just because someone is an hour or two late getting home.

 

Angus

[Cat Brules]

FROM:  B. A. Mc, (above):

“It’s surprising how many people want to file a missing report just because someone is an hour or two late getting home.”

 

I understand it, though.  Most people lead orderly, structured lives, and any unforeseen upset to the norm, creates fear that a loved one has met with an accident or foul play.  They seek and demand action to find their loved one from government agencies, whose reason for existence is directly related to taxes that they pay.

 

Cat Brules

[Utah Bob #35998]

12 hours ago, Cat Brules said:

FROM:  B. A. Mc, (above):

“It’s surprising how many people want to file a missing report just because someone is an hour or two late getting home.”

 

I understand it, though.  Most people lead orderly, structured lives, and any unforeseen upset to the norm, creates fear that a loved one has met with an accident or foul play.  They seek and demand action to find their loved one from government agencies, whose reason for existence is directly related to taxes that they pay.

 

Cat Brules

Also with the constant communication people have with each other they expect to be in touch with friends and family every second of the day.Any break in that pattern causes mmediate anxiety.