Texas Mist
Retired WS Staff
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2008
- Messages
- 9,218
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He said the police department is operating under the assumption that the child simply wandered off.
"We don't have anything to indicate to us that it is an abduction," Penshorn said.
Searchers now will focus on checking areas that weren't searched earlier by foot.
"Most of those areas will include some very large areas of property that we haven't been able to search as of yet. The access is a little more difficult. Some of them have very difficult terrain and very thick vegetation. Also there are several large ponds that we'll in all likelihood bringing in dive teams to check."
http://herald-zeitung.com/news/community_alert/article_37cf3ee6-320b-11e0-90fb-001cc4c002e0.html
The terrain is too difficult for volunteer searchers, but not for an 18 month old baby? Really? What am I missing here? I know a baby can go miles longer than you think they can. But they don't generally go climbing through vegetation or up a mountain or anywhere other than just walking. :waitasec:
My understanding of what's going on after reading 2 other articles is that they don't want volunteers there due to safety concerns and because they're going to use the K9 teams to search (including the thick vegetation) - the volunteers (per Lt. Penshorn) could interfere w/ the work of the dogs...also they're going to be searching on private property, so maybe the landowner doesn't want the general public on it.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/default/article/New-Braunfels-toddler-still-missing-999561.php
http://kgnb.am/news/day-3-search-missing-boy-now-recovery-operation
About a 2 years ago, a 2yo boy went missing in LLano County...he'd wandered off on a TX Hill Country ranch while his mom was getting something out of the car...it's much more rugged there than New Braunfels, IMO...they found the little boy over a mile away after a DPS helicopter spotted him.
They did use volunteers (and TES), but at the time they weren't doing a 'recovery' search...Owen was found w/i 15 hours & miraculously survived sub-freezing temps by getting up on some rocks.
This article gives a good description of what little Owen would have seen during his 1-mile trek...it also mentions how volunteers (and rocks) interfered w/ the thermal tracking system while trying to find Owen.
IMO, LE can have good reasons to not want volunteers up in the mix of what they're doing.
http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/hill_country/missing_toddler_found_in_llano_county