Expert: Jack Toomey - 1/26/2010

Question
Mr. Toomey,

Hi, how are you? I am writing because I was googling police procedure related to missing children, and I came a cross a question you answered in November of 2008 from another writer seeking insight into police procedure for a script.

Well, I am writing a short story, and I am a little stuck on a point where I can't seem to figure out a realistic response on the police' part, and I was hoping you might be able to provide some insight. Is that possible?

Here's the scenario: the Police in a northern suburb of Boston (nice town, maybe Arlington) receives a call from a good neighborhood that a sound like gunshots was heard coming from a house on the same street.

The responding officer arrives thinking that it's probably a false alarm--slammed door, TV on too loud, maybe even the cliche back-firing car--and that he will soon be explaining to some disgruntled, middle-aged couple that he's sorry for waking them, but he had to follow up on the call.

But then he sees the door is ajar.

Without retelling the whole story here, he enters the house and discovers a family home in which the parents have been shot dead in their bed. There's a boy's bedroom, but the boy is found in the living room, apparently in a state of mental shock; he won't speak at all, let alone answer questions about what happened. There's also a girl's bedroom, but the girl is no where to be found. He checks the entire house, but doesn't find any intruders, and it this point, calls in for assistance, and settles in to prevent further crime scene contamination until more help arrives.

There's a reason the girl isn't around--she died 6 months ago, and her parents, who aren't dealing with it well, haven't changed her room, at all. When the detective/antogonist arrives, he'll recognize the girl and her mother from the a family picture and explain this, but until then, that first responding officer must be considering the possibility that the girl was abducted by whoever killed the parents. I need him to pursue the possibility in a realistic manner until the detective arrives.

So my questions are these:
1. Is it realistic to have a lone officer responding to a call like this, or would he necessarily have a partner. If alone, would he call for assistance before entering the house?
2. Once he calls in a double murder with possible missing child, what's a realistic range of time it would take for a detective to arrive to investigate?
3. My understanding (perhaps incorrect) is that there are standards applied to Amber Alerts so that they couldn't just jump to that step. First, I believe there is a requirement to confirm that there actually has been an abduction, a requirement that prevents false alarms. After all, she could be somewhere innocent, like sleeping over a friend's house. OK, she's 6, so maybe she's sleeping over Grandma's. But what would be a reasonable course of action to start trying to track down her location? Would they look for an address book and start calling family and friends? Would they start knocking on doors?
4. At what point in such a situation would the responding officer know the identity of the homeowners? Would the identity be communicated to him over the radio when he was dispatched to the house, or would he have to figure it out when he got there?

I'm gonna stop there, because I have a thousand questions, but I don't want to assume to much. If you can answer even part of these, I will be very grateful!

Thanks in advance for your time, and I appreciate any help you can offer on this.

Sincerely,
- Eric

Answer
Eric,

Most police departments have one man cars while a few have two man cars so it would depend on whatever police department you are writing about.  It would be safe to say that it would be a one man car.

If the original call was for shots fired then he might wait for a backup unit.  But maybe not.  All police officers make their own decisions and there is no one guiding them on each and every call.

I don't know about this "missing child".  Just because there is an empty girls bedroom that certainly does not mean that someone has been abducted or even missing.  I think that an empty bedroom would be the last thing that he would be thinking about.  If I was writing this story and the empty girls bedroom has to be a factor then I would change some of the facts so that the officer is suspicious of the empty bedroom.  As it stands now it would not be suspicious at all.

Detective - many things would come into play as far as the response time.  If it was late at night the department (if it was a small department) might not have a detective working.  He would have to be called from home so it could be an hour or two.  If there is a detective on duty then it shouldn't be too long.  Also if this is a double murder there is going to be more than one detective plus any number of high ranking officers at the scene.

The first officer is not going to be going through any address books or touching anything.  He might even take the boy outside so that the scene is not contaminated.  By the way if it were me I would consider the boy as a suspect.  

Unless this is Mayberry, NC or the officer has been there before he is not going to know who the homeowner is until a neighbor tells him or the station has some kind of reverse lookup system where the clerk can check street by street and find out.

Amber Alert - forget it.  Won't happen.