Working With Police

Who has jurisdiction?

• File the report with the department where the person was last seen. If that's unknown, file where they live. Either must take it.
• If the person may have traveled, both departments can be involved. Ask each: "Which agency has the lead, and what's the case number on your end?"
• Inside city limits → city police. Outside → county sheriff. Highways → state police / highway patrol. Tribal land → tribal police, often with FBI or BIA. Military member → their base's law enforcement as well as local police.
• If one department says "not ours," ask them to take the report anyway and forward it. Under federal law (for anyone under 21) and most state laws, they cannot refuse to take a missing person report based on jurisdiction.

What police can do that you can't

• Request a phone location ping and records from the carrier under exigent circumstances.
• Pull bank and card activity, transit cards, toll records, and license-plate-reader hits.
• Obtain security footage from businesses that won't release it to the public (but see our tip in Retracing Steps — you can often get it preserved).
• Enter the person in NCIC so any officer anywhere who runs their name or plate gets a hit.
• Issue alerts, BOLOs, and contact other agencies, hospitals, and medical examiners through official channels.

Your job is to feed them everything that lets them use those tools: phone number and carrier, bank names, plate, route, friends' names and numbers.

Being the family they can work with

• One point of contact. Pick the calmest, most organized person. Everyone else routes through them.
• Write everything down and send a short, dated summary email after each conversation: "Confirming what we discussed today…" This creates a record and makes it easy for the next shift to catch up.
• Bring new information in a tidy form — a one-page timeline, a list of names and numbers, screenshots in order. Detectives have many cases; make yours the easy one to act on.
• Ask for a regular check-in — "Can we touch base every afternoon?" — instead of calling ten times a day.
• Tell them before you post publicly about anything sensitive, and pass every tip you receive to them, even ones that seem useless.

When you feel brushed off

1. Name the risk clearly. "He has no history of leaving, left his medication, and his car is still here. I believe he is endangered." Use the word endangered.
2. Ask for the supervisor. Politely: "I'd like to speak with the shift sergeant or the detective division supervisor."
3. Ask for specifics. "Has she been entered into NCIC? What is the NCIC number? Has a BOLO been issued for the vehicle? Has the carrier been contacted?" Specific questions get specific action.
4. Go up a level. Your state missing persons clearinghouse (in the state police / Department of Public Safety) can coordinate and nudge. For children, NCMEC works the case alongside police and is very effective at getting attention.
5. Register the case in NamUs yourself. NamUs contacts the agency to verify, which puts the case in front of them again.
6. Local media and elected officials. A reporter's call or a city council member's inquiry often moves a case. Keep it factual and keep the police number on everything.
7. Private resources. Some regions have volunteer search-and-rescue groups and nonprofit investigators who work with families for free. Ask the clearinghouse or NCMEC for vetted ones; be very careful with anyone who asks for money up front.

Things to know

• You can request a copy of the report. Keep it with you; it opens doors at hospitals and with other agencies.
• Police generally need a warrant or your consent to search the person's home or phone. If you have access, offer it — but ask them first before going through devices yourself, so nothing gets overwritten.
• If your loved one is found and is an adult who doesn't want contact, police will tell you they're safe but may not tell you where. That is painful, and it is the law.
• If the case is closed and you believe it shouldn't be, ask in writing for it to be reopened and state the new information. Copy the clearinghouse.