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Tama County Sheriff setting up volunteer team

The Tama County Sheriff’s Office has been working on a plan to be employed in the event of a child abduction should one ever take place here. This plan was started after evaluating other recent abductions that have taken place, the problems faced by those officers, and the lessons learned about managing such an event and investigation.

One major problem faced by investigators is the large amount of “volunteers” that show up at such scenes and just want to help out in some way. This has increased with the extreme media coverage of these types of incidents. Investigators have found through experience that these volunteers must be managed in some way, or they will start wandering around doing their own searching. Investigators have also found that trying to manage all the volunteers, tends to tie up investigators who should be working on the actual investigation.

A team of volunteers who are already background checked and have become accustomed to how to properly search an area is ideal. This team can be used to search large areas for persons or even possibly evidence and can deploy much faster than law enforcement officers coming from all over the state. This team can also assume a management role over “walk on” volunteers who just showed up to help. They can document whom those persons are (in case they later become witnesses), assess those person’s physical ability to search, and then give the results to one investigator. This would streamline the management of the volunteers, free up officers to do investigation, and assure that those volunteers who do go afield are properly identified and reasonably physically capable of being in the environment to be searched.

While this team’s origins are from a child abduction plan, they would be subject to call out for any missing or endangered person, such as an Alzheimer’s patient who has wandered off.

If you are interested in being on such a team as a volunteer, please submit your name, phone number, and email address if one is available to brhoads@so.tamacounty.org or call Bruce Rhoads at 641 484 3760. If you have a criminal background involving sex offenses you will not be considered. The Sheriff’s Office reserves the right to disqualify anyone who applies without explanation.

Tama County Sheriff setting up volunteer team

The Tama County Sheriff’s Office has been working on a plan to be employed in the event of a child abduction should one ever take place here. This plan was started after evaluating other recent abductions that have taken place, the problems faced by those officers, and the lessons learned about managing such an event and investigation.

One major problem faced by investigators is the large amount of “volunteers” that show up at such scenes and just want to help out in some way. This has increased with the extreme media coverage of these types of incidents. Investigators have found through experience that these volunteers must be managed in some way, or they will start wandering around doing their own searching. Investigators have also found that trying to manage all the volunteers, tends to tie up investigators who should be working on the actual investigation.

A team of volunteers who are already background checked and have become accustomed to how to properly search an area is ideal. This team can be used to search large areas for persons or even possibly evidence and can deploy much faster than law enforcement officers coming from all over the state. This team can also assume a management role over “walk on” volunteers who just showed up to help. They can document whom those persons are (in case they later become witnesses), assess those person’s physical ability to search, and then give the results to one investigator. This would streamline the management of the volunteers, free up officers to do investigation, and assure that those volunteers who do go afield are properly identified and reasonably physically capable of being in the environment to be searched.

While this team’s origins are from a child abduction plan, they would be subject to call out for any missing or endangered person, such as an Alzheimer’s patient who has wandered off.

If you are interested in being on such a team as a volunteer, please submit your name, phone number, and email address if one is available to brhoads@so.tamacounty.org or call Bruce Rhoads at 641 484 3760. If you have a criminal background involving sex offenses you will not be considered. The Sheriff’s Office reserves the right to disqualify anyone who applies without explanation.