Missing children cases – what parents should know

Arguably one of the scariest moments for a parent comes after realizing your child could be missing.

In fact, it’s a common scenario.

The Pocatello Police Department said it receives a high volume of missing children calls, and since the start of 2016 until today, officers logged 167 of those calls as “runaways” that happened in Pocatello, alone. But, police say the majority of them end up coming back home within hours after being reported.

Pocatello Police Department School Resource Officer at Century High School Zac Bartschi said they take every single one of those calls very seriously.

“Most of us are parents as well and there’s no worse feeling than losing a child or just not knowing where your child is,” Bartschi said.

He added, every missing child call that comes in, the police department immediately sends-out all of the officers who are available to swarm the area in order to find the child.

He said, most often, the child is either down the street playing at a friend’s house or happened to accidentally jump on the wrong bus on their way home from school. He also pointed-out, that children love to find small spaces, such as cupboards, where parents understandably don’t think to look. And sometimes, that child will fall asleep in those tight nooks throughout the home.

“Most of the time, someone will call to report a missing child, and then we get a call right back saying, ‘we found them,'” Bartschi said. “But we would much rather get that “disregard” call, versus wait too long and have precious time pass.”

There’s a common misconception where most people think they need to wait 48 hours before reporting a missing person. However, that’s wrong.

Bartschi said, once you get that parental instinct, don’t hesitate to make that phone call.

“When you get that hair standing up on the back of your head and you think something is wrong, call and we’ll send someone out right away.”

Bartschi also noted to be careful when seeing missing children posts on social media sites such as Facebook. He said, while it’s a great tool to help locate missing children or runaways quickly, there have been times when the claims were false, and it could be a monumental challenge to get the word out once they’re found.