'We can go look under rocks, look in alleys and kick over cans'
Calls can come from the city's 25 police districts, other agencies and the public.
The information is jotted on an index card and filed in a small thin box packed with other cards. When someone is found, his or her card is moved to an adjacent box.
(Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)
PHOTO GALLERY
Have you seen them?
The boxes represent the universe of missing persons cases in Chicago. But newly arrived cases are computerized as well, typed into city and federal databases, and faxed to Special Victims detectives for follow-up.
Before this particular September day is over, Missing Persons workers will field 75 reports.
This is the unit that fielded calls about Jesse Ross, a still-missing Missouri college student; Nancie Walker, a 55-year-old businesswoman who turned up murdered in 2003; Diamond and Tionda Bradley, children who vanished in 2001 after leaving a note that they were going to the park; and Lamar Randle, whose family reported him missing last July, not knowing he was laid up in a hospital, unable to tell anyone his name.
They were highlighted over the past week in the Chicago Sun-Times series "Missing in Chicago."
Today, the final day of the project, the focus shifts to how police handle missing persons cases -- which are not all investigated equally.
In Chicago, kids under 10, the elderly and those deemed "endangered" get priority -- something officials argue is necessary because of limited resources.
"Those are high-risk cases right on their face, and we ratchet up our resources accordingly," said Chicago Police Cmdr. Robert Hagersheimer, who oversees the Missing Persons Unit. "Beyond that, the level of follow-up is based on the circumstances surrounding the individual's absence."
While the level of urgency can certainly differ by case, the Sun-Times found that getting cops in Chicago and other jurisdictions to take a report -- particularly for adults -- can be an exercise in frustration, and sometimes there's only a cursory investigation.
One veteran detective who handles missing persons cases in Chicago rationalizes it this way: "If the citizens of Chicago want us to spend more time on missing persons, we can. Chicago's a big city. We can go look under rocks, look in alleys and kick over cans."
"But with a lot of my adults, someone left and didn't want someone else to know where they are, and most of the juveniles are teenagers who went off to do their thing, and they'll come home when they're ready. Sometimes you basically just have to give missings time, and ultimately, almost all of them just show up on their own."
Statistics bear him out.
In Chicago, 20,000 people are reported missing each year. The vast majority of cases -- 98 percent -- are solved, largely because missing individuals often want to be gone, and eventually return home.
But missing persons advocates complain that police are too often dismissive of what turn out to be legitimate cases of missing adults, potentially jeopardizing safe returns.
In Nancie Walker's case, police had to be arm-twisted to take a report, and then hemmed and hawed about following up, relatives said.
In Lamar Randle's case, investigators somehow missed the fact that he was in a hospital. He was reunited with his family not because of Chicago Police, but because a Sun-Times reporter put two and two together.
In some suburbs, police do little more than punch details into a database and hand out fliers to officers to be on the lookout.
"If there's not going to be a change of federal mandate, we must make changes on the local level, so that your missing person case is not handled one way in one jurisdiction, and another way just across the county line," said Kym Pasqualini of the National Center for Missing Adults.
There are hopeful signs of change.
The federal government is launching a new database that will, for the first time, allow coroners, police and others to simultaneously search records of missing persons and unidentified remains.
And spurred by a federal task force, Illinois recently passed a law forcing police to take reports on missing adults if complainants come to the station. Cops also must inform families about outside resources, such as Pasqualini's group.
According to state Rep. Dan Brady, Chicago Police initially balked at the law, telling him, "It's great that the Justice Department wanted to do this, but do you have any idea how many missing person reports we get?"
hicago Police Officer Mike Williams is manning the "Hot Desk," a gateway for the 20,000-plus missing person reports that flood the department each year. "Male? Which race? Age? Date of birth?" Williams asks. "What is his height and weight? Hair color and eye color? Date and time he was last seen? Complainant's name and address? Any physical or mental disabilities?" It's around 11 a.m., and calls are just trickling in to the Missing Persons Unit, based at 35th and Michigan.
MORE ONLINE