Expert: Jack Toomey - 11/14/2010

Question
Hi, I'm currently a film student and I'm writing a script that involves a young
girl who runs away from home. Only her parents do not believe she has
runaway, they think she has been kidnapped. This is not the entire premise of
the screenplay but, you get the point.

In my script, the police will do a city-wide search for the girl. In the scene
that I'm writing, however, the head of the police department approaches an
officer and orders them to "begin" the search. The problem is, dialogue wise,
I'm not sure what a police officer would say to "begin" a search for a missing
child. I know there are no "set procedures" and that every state may be
different, but I'm sure there's jargon that police officers use, I just don't know
it.

Here's some background information about the story:

-The missing girl is 13.
-Her parents are upper middle class.
-At this point in the script, the girl has been missing for about 13 hours
(since 9 PM at night), but her parents only realized she was missing in the
morning at 9 AM.
-The story takes place in the city of Atlanta, GA and let's assume that the
police department is fairly large.
-The police department has yet to find any evidence of a kidnapping--no
ransom or anything along those lines.
-No media coverage, yet.

Thanks for your help!

Gabrielle Mitchell  

Answer
Gabrielle,

The chief of police would never be in contact with an officer or say anything to him.  In fact he would never get involved unless it was a very high profile case and there was a lot of media interest.

A patrol officer would be dispatched to the house upon the first call from the parents.  He would evaluate the situation and notify his sergeant who would make a decision on what resources would be used in the case.  If its simply a missing 13 year old girl I doubt seriously that the entire city would be searched.  If a considerable amount of time went by then her computer would be taken, her Facebook page searched, emails looked at, etc.  There would have to have to be some credible evidence of a kidnapping other than the parents thinking that there was a kidnapping.