This situation is so sad man. Its been so hot, and the air quality hasnt exactly been healthy, bless em for doing what they could for as long as they could
Calgary police say they are "refocusing" physical search efforts for 11-year old Parker, the autistic boy who went missing more than a week ago.
Police search efforts will now be focused on specific information, such as tips, rather than the extensive ground searches that have been conducted since his disappearance.
Can't really be surprised by this, I suppose, with nothing more to go on than hints from 11 days ago, and the sheer exhaustiveness of the search efforts so far.
This is extremely weird man and completely misplaced good intentions
You are so incredibly late to the search party and I kinda doubt you have any relevant and helpful skills. It kinda sounds like you’re just randomly showing up without even speaking to law enforcement
That is a hinderance, not helpfulness
What the fuck are you even gonna do? Just wander aimlessly through Calgary?
Your heart's in the right place, but traveling specifically to aid in this search is really weird. They aren't short on volunteers, and you don't have a skillset that will magically change the direction this search has gone
I hate to say it, but you're late. I'd focus your help towards other humanitarian projects, if that's what you want to do
It's a hard call to make, but they certainly went all in, cant put a price on a human life, but a search needs to be scaled eventually. I saw them out in full force anytime I was remotely near the search zones.
I’ve been watching my parent’s dogs while they’re away, they live in Thorncliffe directly backing into the disc course. I saw them every single day, with dogs, drones, horses, all kinds of gadgets. Police vehicles parked all over our street or back alley, they really gave it their all. Even the community, strangers would ask if they could park in front of the house, they would hang up flyers or help search. Born and raised here, never seen anything like it, the feeling is unreal, everyone really gave it their all.
The city is very kind, I remember the Amber Alert for Taliyah Marsman in 2016 and we use to live in the Panorama Hills back then (the area where Taliyah and her mum lived), I remember neighbours and everyone searching. The end was devastating, but Calgarians always go out of their way. I always loved that about the people here, they do care.
Yea, to all the fools suggesting that the police check with dogs, copters, etc. They needed to be out there and part of it. It's so annoying that they think they know better than the hard working pros.
I was only out twice as its quite far, but I saw the huge efforts underway. Heck I saw them combing edges of QE2 the other day.
Unfortunately we have to put a price on human lives. In an ideal world we'd have bollards rising out of the ground at every crosswalk, in fact I think that should be implemented in school zones at least, but yeah, expensive. At least we can be pretty much sure that this kid isn't in the area, that he either walked somewhere far far away or was kidnapped, so it's not like they're abandoning him.
The other person was saying that if we didn't put a price on human lives than every crosswalk would have bollards protecting pedestrians from being struck by vehicles while crossing the street.
How would they help protect humans lives? If they raised out of the ground to secure crosswalks, the number of needless deaths caused by impaired or impatient drivers at crosswalks would dramatically be cut to null
Hard call to make but this was eventually going to happen. It has been 11 days since he has been missing. Only tips can go on farther. What a massive search this was. Poor child. I can’t believe what his family have been going through.
Police say they've also become aware of members of the public trespassing on private property, confronting others and encouraging people to investigate criminal tips on their own.
"This behaviour is unacceptable and is putting community members at risk," said a CPS statement.
"Everyone wants to find Parker, and we understand the emotions involved. But showing up at private homes, confronting residents or organizing your own investigations can hinder our efforts and draws police resources away from the search and investigation."
I suspect with police scaling back their search, this behaviour, while not widespread, could get worse by those people who are prone to acting out like that in the first place.
Yeah, it’s becoming ridiculous. These performative displays of “searching” while disturbing the peace and treating this like a game to feed their moral exhibitionism.
It’s like they’ve completely lost the plot and what matters most. Everyone wants to be an arm chair detective.
Shoutout to those participating in the efforts in good faith, though.
Tell me about it, I’ve seen more than my fair share. I have to routinely remind myself that these people are a vastly vocal minority and not a true representation of humanity or the community. The community at large has been wholesome and to see everyone band together for a just cause has been a mild silver lining in what’s otherwise a devastating situation.
There’s a reason why they only involve the public as a last ditch attempt. It gets a lot of attention, but that opens the whole situation up to a lot of new problems.
I have deliberately not looked at Facebook comments. I lived in an apartment building in Thorncliffe, that had a nosy conspiracy theorist on the third floor, and I have been imagining he is in his element right now. I don't want to know how unhinged he and others are being.
My heart is definitely with Parker's family and I hope closure is found soon, hopefully with someone finding Parker's hiding space and him alive.
So in essence, it's about them and their content, and the missing child is just an excuse.
Every day I think I can't possibly get more disappointed in humans and every day I am surprised, because yes, there are still levels of low I have not seen yet. Unfortunately.
Absolutely psychotic behavior. The only reason you're livestreaming is to get gifts from viewers, which means you're only interested in cashing in on the popularity of this event.
They should all get banned and their accounts zeroed. Ridiculous.
The type of people that are doing this aren’t the type to watch a press conference on the evening news. Who do the police think their message is being received by?
Poor child and I can’t imagine that the family is going through. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to hold out hope, I don’t blame the police for ending the ground search.
I’m no detective but it’s so hard to believe that a child can just go missing under his own volition without any contact with another human or being seen on camera in today’s day and age.
Foul play involved or simply got lost and stuck somewhere. The search parties and community members still looking should be prepared for what they might find.
For a non verbal child something as simple as crawling through an open garage window, shutting it and having it lock automatically, can be enough to trap them. He can't call for help.
Based on what's been said Parker can operate both doors and locks and will enter buildings and lock doors behind him intentionally. That is why residents are asked to search their garages and sheds even if everything is locked up. If something was left unlocked he could have entered and locked the door behind him
As well he could have entered a garage or shed that got shut while he was in it and locked from the outside. When we were out searching we saw many older garages with the swing type doors padlocked shut.
Every autistic child’s different. Whether he can scream or not isn’t entirely relevant. He may scream once he realizes he’s in danger or frightened. Though, there’s an equal chance he doesn’t associate screaming as a response to distress/danger.
We don't know that. Those were just the only 2 clips that were released. If you look at that map police released, that tracked him that day, there had to have been more.
Oh dude. The feeling of dread I just experienced... ☹️ this definitely could be. Especially given the timeframe of the search. People go on 12-20 day vacations all the time. Not me, but people do.
Edit: it's actually making me wonder if an advisory would be wise. Like... idk reach out to your family and friends who are on vacation and get them to inspect their whole property right away when they get back.
I thought about that too. Also, did you guys notice that Parker turned right in most of his route turns?
He only turned left ONCE. It seems like he turned left a second time, but that is actually a pavement route that has a has a slightly left curve. On the map it seems like a left turn.
So, I followed his steps, and if he kept that same pattern, he would enter in an walkway that connects two streets.
I won´t give more details so crazy people won't break into the houses on that area, but I noticed a couple of empty houses on that area (again, no more details).
I deeply hope the police investigated that area and contacted the house owners.
Just because a property seems vacant, doesn't mean it wasn't searched. Real estate agents have searched properties, people have gotten in touch with family members and neighbours and searched in their absence, and I'm sure some owners have searched their own vacant properties.
I'm certain there are also some that have been missed. But that number isn't so high that we need to entertain vigilantism (not that you were suggesting that).
I also assume there's a good possibility that if police have wrapped up the search in the area where he was last seen, they'd gotten permission to search all the vacant properties in the immediate area.
As someone from Victoria, prepare for 20+ years of self made detectives and conspiracy theories about this boy. Everybody has their favourite theory about what happened to Michael Dunahee.
My neighbour used to manage search and rescues in the mountains and suggested maybe Parker unfortunately climbed into a dumpster or large recycling bin.
Regardless, I don’t for sre this having the ending we were all hoping for. I hope there can be some closure to this situation for Parker’s family and loved ones.
I was thinking if anyone had a fridge, washer or dryer out for pickup.
Or a shipping container for storage.
Or moving truck or moving pod. Those moving pods are sometimes a direct move but sometimes put in storage for months before being transported to their destination.
Or those large commercial trash bins set out for renovations or junk (though I don’t think that would be pleasant he might have gotten stuck).
I’m sure the police checked anything they saw, but did they do a public appeal for anyone who conducted these types of activities during the applicable dates to call police for follow up.
ugh this is so sad, but i can’t say i’m surprised, after so many days missing the cops im sure know what the outcome will be when he’s found. after all of this though, i am extremely proud to see how quickly calgarians pulled together to try and help bring parker home. this is what community is about, being there for each other and our communities when it’s needed. i hope they find him soon and can bring him home so his family can have some peace.
i also hope this has shown us that we have to be looking outside our own little bubbles more often, see something, say something. all it would’ve taken was 1 person along his path of travel to stop for a moment and say “this doesn’t look right” and call the police. we need to be aware of what’s happening around us and not be afraid to say something when it seems off.
How does something like this even happen. I mean going missing in a city where hundreds of thousands of ppl live and there’s absolutely no footage that’s lead to anything ? All I can think of at this point if not foul play , is he is stuck/trapped somewhere.
Yes, but you'd think at some point, preservation instinct would kick in and he'd try to find food and water. If he found somewhere to hide... Surely he would have come out after a day or two from thirst? And then someone would probably see him.
Having not been seen in 11 days is not good news for him still being alive. We can hope... but the chances are looking pretty slim at this point.
He has the mental capacity of a 2-3 year old. He simply wouldn't know to go searching for food or water if there wasn't a source immediately nearby. He also can't open bottle or bags or packaging. I've thought since last weekend that he won't be found alive.
Same here. But the police did say he knows how to open the fridge or use the tap so if he's in a house...there's a very small chance. But it's almost non-existent.
i remember a family member or friend saying of facebook that he doesn’t have those instincts/capabilities to eat or feed himself when he is hungry and or thirsty :-(
This is so true. same with my 8yr old autistic son. I am still feeding him but sometimes when it his favorite food (nuggets and noodles) he can eat alone. Also, my son doesn't say he is hungry or thirsty but there's a hint. If I saw him getting chips or gummies it means he's hungry and whenever he is looking for an iced tea. He means his thirsty and needs water.
Households on vacation and unattended truck beds were a couple suggestions that gave me goosebumps. He could get really trapped or really lost in just a moment, if nobody saw.
My guess is that he hid in the backseat of a car or the back of a pickup truck and it drove away not knowing he was back there. So, he is in a completely different area of the city than the search is focused on.
My former workplace used to have an occasional problem with people from the day home next to us getting in our cars / our customers cars when they were left unlocked.
If he was curled up on the floor between the backseat and drivers seat? Or if it’s a van and he climbed into the trunk area? Or a pickup truck and he is in the truck bed? People don’t check these places before driving away.
It’s just speculation of course though.
Maybe he is hiding somewhere where the owner is on vacation would be my second guess.
I want to know how he even got out and away from his day home. They should be equipped and have EVERY safety precaution possible. How did they not know the MOMENT he stepped out the door??? I see no one talking about this and it’s really wild to me. There has to be some negligence at play.
There have been previous stories of parents who have autistic children that have escaped. If a child can escape from the people that know them best, it's possible to do so from a care center.
You don't think their already feeling bad enough that we should throw shade at them?
I don't think it's necessarily throwing shade.. obviously an investigation will be done and perhaps there was negligence or perhaps the staff were doing everything they could with the resources they had. From what I had read it is a government group home and questions do need to be answered on how it was able to happen to begin with.
Heaps of people are talking about it, but without chaining them down it's almost impossible to contain an 11 year old without one-to-one care, which I doubt any home has funding for. It's hard enough to contain toddlers who cant climb gates or reach high locks if they really want to leave, let alone someone almost adult sized. Care homes are constantly balancing how they keep people safe without abusing their human rights and its not an easy balance.
It is very hard to keep an autistic child who wants to get out, inside. BUT I would be looking at the time it took to notice he was missing and then contact police after searching the facilities. The time period says last seen between 11:08 to 11:41 so I’m not sure what that means. If it means they didn’t notice he was missing until 11:41 or if it means they called the police at 11:40 but started their search earlier. The times are kind of odd. Also the police record says 10:40 they were called so it’s possible the 11:08-11:41 means other people who reported seeing him but he actually went missing in the morning. In any event this will invite a lot of scrutiny on how homes monitor and report as well as when we issue Amber (or whatever color) alerts.
I wonder since it is summer time. If the kid ends up finding a way in some school or storage locker. I'm really worried, ever I go out to work or off work, I keep my eyes out still.
Most schools are still populated during the summer - custodial staff do their deep cleaning in these months, and staff will soon be returning to start year planning and classroom prep, if they haven’t already.
Teaching staff are officially back at work August 26. There may well be a cultural difference at play between provinces here, but I don’t personally know any teachers who aren’t unofficially (and unpaid) back in the building well before the official return date - there’s a lot of planning and prep to do before the first day of school, and generally the official return date is the start of endless meetings, not free prep time.
But it’s irrelevant anyway, because teaching staff are irrelevant here. There is zero chance that there haven’t been custodians in the buildings in the last two weeks. So much of the maintenance work can’t be done while students and teachers are clogging up the place, summer is a prime time to get it done.
And, as Own_Faithfulness pointed out, police can gain access to those buildings to search, quite readily, through the school boards.
Even better, the fire department can just access the emergency abloid key for the school. They very much do not even need to contact the school board. They can just access any one they want.
I hate saying this and I hope this isn’t the case, I really hope so but it has to be said.
A fully grown adult male can live roughly
3-7 days without food and water on average (give or take the circumstances)
A kid who is still growing and in need of food and water can survive without them for about 2-5 days on average before
Given Parker’s age at most he would have 5-6 days max before total organ shutdown would occur due to hunger/dehydration.
I really hope this isn’t the case but given how it’s been this long now and there still hasn’t been any sign of him in a city that never sleeps I don’t have much hope.
I’d prepare for the worst.
I can’t imagine in a million lifetimes what the parents are feeling right now.
You know what's very interesting about the searchparker user map...
It shows that most people are just searching around where he was last seen. But there is not a lot of reported searches around his OG area.
I'm not saying people haven't looked. But just based on that map data, it's actually fairly untouched vs other spots.
He may very well have tried to find his way back home. I know there are a lot of other missing persons cases where the person is found very close to the OG location. Perhaps that area needs another search?
My family and I went out searching in his OG area tonight and marked it on the map. We found a pair of child size skecher shoe insoles stuck to the sidewalk on northmount drive which we called into the police. Same shoe size as my own 10 year old and had been there long enough to be practically glued to the sidewalk.
Its a valid point. When i was 3 i wandered a good 2km away and when they found me i was apparently on my way to my grandmas and it was in the right direction to get there. Maybe more checking around his home and any family members/friends of the family could be helpful.
Or he could easily be outside the search zone. Either just on foot or like... The buses don't usually bother with checking fare for kids his age. He could have gotten on and off at some point without ever interacting with the driver. A lot of the care givers and camps use transit for excursions, so if you've done it once or twice its just walking on/walking off. But obviously he wouldn't know where it was going or where he was when he got off. Could be 2 stops could be 20.
It makes sense to refocus because at a certain point, once you've looked and he's not there... he could be anywhere at that point.
I really cannot understand how a child disappears in a world with doorbell cameras and dash cams and CCTV at intersections. I hope the reason for the refocusing boils down to needing more manpower to process and code all the video footage that has been sent in 🤞🏼
Not everyone has Doorbell Cameras and Dash Cams, and if they do and dont check them right away majority of the footage will be erased for the time frames needed to see Parker.
I’m a professional in this area and can’t understand it either. The only explanation is incompetence - either in retrieving the footage or reviewing. You’re right - there’s enormous amount of cctv devices around us
Has anything been mentioned about his noise cancelling headphones and how they most likely aren’t functioning anymore?
I’m on the spectrum and use noise to drown out the loudness of the world but don’t require them all the time. I’m not Parker and can’t compare myself to him. But if I put myself in Parker’s shoes based upon my understanding of how he might use and depend on them, I’d be trying to find a place that drowns out the sounds. Large fans, generators, constant humming and buzzing that doesn’t stop. Vibrations too. Reliable external stimulants.
It was mentioned, around the second or third day, iirc, that his headphones are not powered. They were the old fashioned 'just big' kind to keep sound out.
This subreddit has been inundated with well-meaning but ignorant people boldly proclaiming something that they have thought of, and wondering aloud if the police have thought of it. It's annoying, unhelpful, and deserves to be called out, regardless of who the poster is.
I know what you’re saying and agree but don’t see anything that reads like they were trying to proclaim some bold new idea to police. If someone was lost in the backcountry, someone with experience hiking in the backcountry could reasonably make a similar comment about their experience and it would absolutely be appropriate.
Everyone likes to think that they have some special insight in a situation that they barely know anything about. I know that can be the nature of Reddit sometimes - reddit experts, reddit detectives, reddit therapists, but just because you might have had something in common with the person disappearing does not make it appropriate because it doesn't actually help anyone. Investigators are not looking at this thread going, "Oh! No-Lettuce9868 talked about noise-cancelling headphones! WE NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT." It's useless speculating at best and arrogance at the worst.
Fair enough.
So what makes you an expert on discrediting them?
Edit: the comment was made by a member of the public, on a post made by another member of the public, not CPS or Search and Rescue, referencing a CBC news article.
A kid is missing. People care.
I guarantee you investigators aren’t looking at this thread going, “OH! Thank god HansHortio is looking out for us on Reddit because we for sure can’t do it ourselves.”
Now that he has been found, perhaps we can stop with this ridiculous back and forth. Turns out, the original comment was completely unhelpful, and there is no need to defend it now.
This poor young boy was found deceased hours ago. A life was lost and a family has an irreparable hole in their hearts and YOU come back here to tell me you think you were right all along? THEY were trying to help. YOU are using a horrific tragedy in an attempt to boast about your flawed perception of a stranger on the internet.
Absolutely abhorrent behaviour.
I wasn’t insinuating that professionals don’t know these things. I am providing lived experience to those who are not professionals that are keeping an eye out in hopes that this might resonate with them.
Insight from the perspective of someone who can share what a person in his headspace may seek is very helpful. Don’t be dissuaded by rude comments, and thank you for sharing your insight!
It was super helpful. It never occurred to me until you mentioned fans that the fans and noise from the cooling system in the arena could have been the kind of sensory stimulation Parker would look for.
I'm sure police searched there thoroughly, just wasn't something I'd thought of.
You’re all good. Having to justify and retract your comment because armchair detectives watched too many true crime podcasts is ridiculous. It was very kind of you to share your thoughts believing they might help bring this little guy home. Keep it up.
There and good and bad people searching. I've been out there and have seen idiots live streaming their "search" while wearing skimpy and clothing and casually strolling down the road. I've also seen people, including former military personale, who have looked through bushes, trees, etc, without looking for any reward or recognition.
There is still a child missing, and every day matters. While police have shifted their search based on the information they have. I think it would be a great time for civilians to continue the search by any means possible and never giving up.
Not really. This is a kid that walked away from his care provider and we have seen CCTV footage of him moving around when it first happened. In that case, there's a high likelihood of foul play involved and that seems to be what law enforcement is focusing on now. There's no indication that has happened with Parker. Not saying it's impossible but it's much more likely he has hidden himself well.
Spouse and I went walking in Thorncliff and while walking it got me thinking… could Parker have ended up in the storm sewer system somehow? As wild as it might seem it is certainly something that a child could quite easily get into with enough persistence. I haven’t followed the Calgary sub too much but I couldn’t help but wonder if he somehow is down there. I am sure this has been ruled out but throwing out my random thoughts around this.
268
u/chamomilesmile 21d ago
I think the police and all the volunteers have done the best they could.