What to do if a loved one is missing

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Doing the wrong things can waste valuable time and seriously interfere with the search for the missing person. Learn how to deal with this situation.

1. Start searching immediately

The sooner the search action begins, the better. The missing person has not yet gone far, the recordings on the cameras have not yet “closed” more recent, it is easier for witnesses to recognize and remember, the search dog can still take a trace. Time is a critical resource.

Call the relatives, friends and acquaintances of the missing person. If a child is missing, call your friends, classmates, teachers, parents of classmates, your favorite coach, grandparents, your ex-husbands and wives. And do not forget, when you find him, call everyone again and thank them for their help.

Don't hesitate even if it's late!

2. Contact the police with a report of the loss

Anyone (not necessarily a relative) can apply at any police station, but the process will go faster if you contact the police at the place of residence of the missing person. It is imperative to have with you: your documents and the most recent photograph of the missing person. Take a close look at what items of clothing and things are missing - you will definitely be asked about this.

Important: there is no time limit (day, three days, week) during which the application is not accepted, does not exist! The application must be accepted immediately.

If this does not happen and you are told “will take a walk and come back”, “what will happen to him - an adult,” and so on, call 112 and leave a complaint. A call to 112 is already a recorded statement to the police.

Take the contacts of the officer who will deal with your case in the police: not to call every hour and ask how the search is progressing, but to inform in time if the missing person returns home or other important information appears.

3. Call the hotline "Lisa Alert"

8 (800) 700-54-52, round the clock, free number for all regions of Russia.

The hotline operator will ask a few basic questions and will forward the application to the desired region, to those who will deal with it, after which the information coordinators of the squad will contact you to clarify the details.

Please provide reliable information!

Any circumstances and details are important: the search for a person suffering from any disease will be significantly different from the search for an absolutely healthy one, and the search for a teenager who has run away from home is not at all the same as finding a child who disappeared on the way from school.

Personal information about the missing person is confidential, and a strictly limited number of people have access to it. We never give out the details of the privacy of those we are looking for to third parties or the media. Do not hide what, from your point of view, does not paint the missing person or you: binges, bad relations with loved ones, the fact that you strongly scolded the child for a misdemeanor, and so on. For us, this is simply information necessary for an effective search.

4. Connect as many people as possible to searches

Call relatives, acquaintances, friends, colleagues, neighbors - everyone who knows the missing person by sight. Under the guidance of an experienced searcher, these people can play a crucial role in finding a missing person. Your family and friends are the most motivated participants in the search.

During an active search, someone must be at home: the missing person can return, it is important to find out about this in time and not waste energy on an irrelevant search.

5. Do not enter into "junk" correspondence

If you follow social media, don't chat in the comments, or rather read them - let the Information Search Coordinators do it. Usually in such situations psychics are activated (we do not have a single reliable case where they would correctly indicate the whereabouts of a person), scammers who are ready to tell where the missing person is, for a certain amount, “sofa experts” with strange recommendations and bored lovers of details. They will not help the search, but your mental strength will be spent

6. Do not post orientations without the consent of the police and "Lisa Alert"

There are situations when we and the police decide not to spread the orientation. For example, if we are looking for a teenager who has run away from home and we assume that he is in his area, the sticky landmarks can provoke an escape in an unknown direction.

7. Do not publish your personal phone number

Leave a personal number for personal contacts. For everything else, there are numbers indicated in the orientations and information summaries. In an unstable emotional state, it is very difficult to distinguish false from reliable evidence. In addition, we know of cases when parents of missing children, who indicated their address and telephone number, were not allowed to live in peace by "caring" people for years.