New Philadelphia Police Chief Tessa Pohovey is among 21 professionals chosen to be on a Missing Persons Working Group.
Members consist of law enforcement, officials with the court and school systems, as well as organizations dedicated to finding missing individuals.
Pohovey says she was contacted about her interest in being part of the working group.
“To be honest I’m not sure how I was chosen but I was obviously honored to have been thought of and I’m excited to be part of something that’s very important.”
Led by the Ohio Department of Public safety, the first meeting is January 23rd.
“The way this came about is the Columbus Dispatch did an investigation, and they just felt the investigative process was lacking in some areas. From the report it says there’s nearly a thousand people that are still missing, including I think it said around 300 children that have been missing for over a year.”
Pohovey notes that the Dispatch’s report showed a lack of uniformity between the many agencies involved in a missing person report.
“And I think that is what kind of sparked this to be put into place that there is a bit of dysfunction in the system and to see if we can kind of streamline and get agencies statewide more on the same or similar page on how these are investigated.”
Missing person cases are important across the state and nation, and she was happy to report that for the New Philadelphia Police Department, there are currently no open missing adult cases but there are a few child cases.
“I believe they were all Hispanic, which brings its own challenges as well with some of the immigration stuff and information we have available, but hopefully we can find ways to combat that as well to make it a little e more streamlined, a little more easier for us to investigate.”
Recommendations, from the working group, are expected at the end of April.
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