MisterKrinkle wrote:While I'm sure missing persons investigations aren't a cake walk, when said person has 3 encounters with police with one definitely running her through the system, and then shows up in a mental hospital, that's literally them doing your job for you. How does a missing person not show up in the police system? And how does the hospital not say, I don't know, check to see if there's anyone missing fitting the description of the delirious patient who doesn't know her name? There's so many instances of fucks not being given I think they've collapsed into an accretion disk that feeds on inadequacy.
Krinkle: We do not routinely check police reports in the hospital because we do not have access to them. We cannot just call the police and say "hey are you looking for a white female?" because it violates privacy laws. People can have fugue states and forget their identity. It doesn't always mean they're a missing person. Now, perhaps, if the police had left a poster at the hospitals then yes, maybe it would have been caught by an admissions person. The databases are not connected (and rightly so, i can only imagine the abuse of power that could occur).
As for multiple police failures, it's very possible that they considered her a "low risk" missing person. As such, they wouldn't have put an APB out on her vehicle.
Or whomever initiated the missing persons report fucked up and didn't PUT an APB on her vehicle. I know my local police station never put an APB on our stolen car (they forgot they said) so we didn't know it was sitting in a parking lot 10 miles away until they went to tow it.
I do want to point out that the author's boyfriend had neglected to tell the police officers that she'd had a dissociatve episode before. Information that very well could have been crucial and led to a memo to all ERs.