Requires police agencies to take reports of missing adults whenever the adult is reported to be missing – PASSED!

BILL NUMBER: S6437A

TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the executive law, in relation to requiring police agencies to take reports of missing adults whenever the adult is reported to be missing.

PURPOSE:

To amend the executive law in relation to requiring police agencies to take reports of missing adults whenever the adult is reported to be missing.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :

Section 1 sets forth that this act shall be known and may be cited as “Lamont Dottin’s law”.

Section 2 provides if a police agency receives a report that an adult person is missing from his or her ordinary place of residence who cannot be located by a person whose relationship with such adult person would place them in a position to have knowledge of the missing person’s whereabouts, and that such missing person: has a proven disability, may be in physical danger, is missing after a catastrophe, may have disappeared involuntarily, or is missing under circumstances where there is a reasonable concern for his or her safety (and such missing adult person does not qualify as a missing child or vulnerable adult pursuant to the executive law), the police agency shall collect information necessary to file an electronic report and submit such electronic report to the National Crime Information Center Register.

Section 3 provides this act shall take effect on the sixtieth day after it shall have become a law.

EXISTING LAW :

Police agencies are not currently required to take and submit reports of missing adults under the conditions described in this legislation.

JUSTIFICATION :

Anita Fowler’s son, LaMont Dottin, was a freshman at Queens College (CUNY) when he disappeared on October 18, 1995 after leaving his grandmother’s house to mail a package to his mother, who was in California. Dr. Fowler returned immediately to New York and began searching for her son. She tried to report him as missing, but due to police regulations she was unable to file a report until November 13, 1995. Dr. Fowler searched for five years, when she found that her son’s body was found six days after she reported him as missing and lay unidentified in a grave at Potter’s Field since February 1996.

This legislation seeks to prevent future confusion and heartache by requiring law enforcement to take a report whenever a person is reported missing and send such report to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) Register.

This will create a permanent record of all reports of missing persons. This will assist law enforcement in searching for such person if it is determined subsequent that such person is indeed missing. Further, in the event the missing person is located in either a hospital or a morgue, this registry will assist in identifying the person and will reunite the missing person with his or her family or, if the person is deceased, it will help the family some semblance of closure.

The previous version of this bill was vetoed by the governor, citing compliance concerns with the NCIC database because reports were to be filed even when circumstances did not indicate a missing adult was in danger. This version of the bill delineates the several situations a report shall be filed, including but not limited to physical danger, mirroring the parameters of the NCIC database.

These are people behind the passage of this law plus countless of people who matched on numerous occasions to bring the Lamont Dottin’s Law in reality. Thank you all.

PROPOSED LEGISLATION:
The “Lamont Dottin’s law; relates to reporting duties with respect to missing children and adults; establishes uniform standards for searching for missing persons; expands state databanks to approach not only the problem of missing children but missing adults as well; requires police departments to establish a trained missing person specialist.

DOING SO WILL….

• Expand the criteria used to determine when to launch an immediate investigation into the whereabouts of a missing person.
• Remove the age limit and review missing person reports on a case-by-case basis and confirm to the families, who deserve to know, that their loved ones are remembered and not forgotten.
• Bridge the gaps that currently exist in the process and rob the hope from the families with missing loved.
• Eliminate the “Myths” that every missing person 21 years old is a runaway or are far more likely to have chosen to be absent themselves from their home.
• Establish a deliberate and methodical process that is proactive and transparent when it comes to searching for a missing loved one.

BACKGROUND:
La Mont Dottin disappeared from St. Albans, New York, October 16, 1995. His body was found floating in the East Harlem River six days later and buried in pauper’s grave in potter’s field. As a result of existing law, a variety of unfortunate and tragic circumstance, this was not known to his family and it was not until four years later and years of searching that they were was able to exhume his body and give him a proper burial.

HISTORY:

1. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed May 25 as National Missing Children’s Day. Each year the Department of Justice (DOJ) commemorates Missing Children’s Day with a ceremony honoring the heroic and exemplary efforts of agencies, organizations, and individuals to protect children.
2. 1999 – Campus Safety Act Established
3. 2003 – Suzanne Law- Suzanne’s laws is a federal law concerning missing persons signed into law by President Bush as part of the national “Amber Alert”. The law provides that there shall be no waiting period before a law enforcement agency initiates an investigation of a missing person under the age of twenty one and reports the missing person to the National Crime Information Center of the Department of Justice. The bill also requires local authorities to notify the National Crime Information Center immediately if someone between the ages of 18 and 21 goes missing.

Here’s the Central Tenet of LaMont Dottin Foundation – Our Driving Force.

We are working for a pro-active, coordinated response, planned in advance, for missing cases. Our plan calls for prompt and uniform standards for searching for missing persons.

In consultation with the division of state police and other appropriate agencies, the division shall, on or before January first, two thousand fifteen, adopt and implement and thereafter regularly update a uniform plan for searching for missing persons. Such plan that is triggered immediately upon confirmation by a police officer, peace officer or police agency of a report of a missing person.

Our plans at the minimum, require that:

1. the name of the missing person, a description of the person and other pertinent information be immediately dispatched over the police communication system to local, state and national agencies; and..
2. there shall be no presumption that persons between the ages of nineteen and sixty-four are not missing.

Police agencies not connected with the basic police communication system in use in such jurisdiction shall transmit such information to the nearest or most convenient teletypewriter point, from which point it shall be immediately dispatched, in conformity with the orders, rules or regulations governing the system.

No dispatch or transmission of a report concerning missing persons shall be required by such plan if the investigating police department determines that the release of such information would jeopardize the investigation or the safety of the person, or otherwise requests forbearance. Join us in this fight.

See Bill A08961 for details.

Support the LaMont Dottin’s Law