VIDEO: What Classifies a “Missing” Persons

WINSTON COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI)- When someone goes missing the first place you go to is either the sheriff’s department or police station.

From there, the process can be a little tricky.

“Every person, or every child that goes missing is not necessarily an amber alert, there has to be a threat or belief that that child is in imminent danger,” says Master Sergeant Criss Turnipseed with Mississippi Highway Patrol Troop G.

There is certain criteria that needs to be be met for a police chief or sheriff to declare an amber alert.

These five questions all need to be answered, yes. But every case is different.

“If it’s a missing child, we’ll take a whole different set of steps if the child is 10-12 years of age or younger than if it was a 16-17 year old who didn’t come home last night after a party,” says Winston county Sheriff Jason Pugh.

Local and state law enforcement start the cases and then decide if the FBI or other federal groups need to know.

That can be seen right now as law enforcement across the country are working together to track down Elizabeth Thomas- who is with her former teacher

So how much time needs to pass before someone is declared, “missing”…?

“48 hours is a good guideline, if they haven’t been seen in 2 days- and the older you get and the younger you get that number needs to shrink,” says Pugh.

For the elderly, silver alert’s are only issued if the person suffers from some sort of mental disability.

Pugh says there are preventatives people can take.

“I’ll probably be in trouble with every teenage viewer on WCBI tonight, but I encourage their parents to, if they have an iPhone to turn on the “find my phone” app. That sort of thing really works, it helps them know where their children are and it really helps us if there is a problem- so you know there’s steps that you can take. I want to extend the same courtesy to any parent that I would want my children to have,” says Pugh.

Now, if someone you know has not been seen and you feel their life is in danger, go to your local law enforcement immediately.