THUNDER BAY – City police fielded 259 missing person reports between January and June this year, an average of about 43 reports each month.
That's according to a report presented to the Thunder Bay Police Services Board on Thursday.
According to that report all but one were located.
Detective Inspector Jeremey Pearson told the board that there are two missing persons investigations currently open, the second is “not from this reporting period.”
“There's one missing person reported during this period who remains on standing and another from 2020 both of which are still an active investigation,” said Pearson.
He also noted that foul play was not suspected in any of the missing persons cases from the first half of the year.
Duty Chief Ryan Hughes told Newswatch, “we do get a lot of missing people and some of them are repetitive. Every missing person report is taken seriously and investigated.”
Police board member Wayne Bahlieda asked Pearson about the police’s media policy on missing persons.
Pearson said that the police have slightly adjusted their practice on the way they handle reaching out to the public. They will consult with the party doing the reporting of a missing person to participate in providing a photo for a media release, but ultimately, final decisions on alerting the media or posting to social media are up to the investigator.
“We often locate with some people in a very, very short time period. So, therefore, it's an investigative decision,” Pearson.
He does point out that when the investigator will appeal to the public through media resources if there is “a specific risk factor or element of concern involved.”
Hughes said, “that is a balance because if we flood the media with pictures every time there's a missing person, people don't care, they just say there's another missing person. We are aware of that.”
“We have a search urgency chart that asks specific questions of the officers. They go through that. Basically, it designates how and what resources are led to that (case),” said Hughes.
“A lot of people think as soon as a missing person is reported, police don't do anything. As soon as a missing person is reported, there are members working on it and it's behind the scenes. There's background work that happens.”
“Even though people don't see us out searching, there's background information, there's phone calls that are being made, there's investigative steps that are being done.”
