Opinion: What if we had all started sooner in missing man search?

Josefita Griego wonders if we could have saved Bob Casey.

What if a community search party had been organized at 10:30 that Wednesday night when the 83-year-old man was first reported missing?

What if more people had known, sooner, that we all needed to be looking?

We may never know, of course. And there’s nothing we can do about it now. But Griego hopes lessons learned in Casey’s death can help prevent a future tragedy.

Griego is best known for her community activism, primarily through her “Take Back Your Community” Facebook page, that includes more than 7,000 members.

She ultimately helped organize a search party for the missing man, but didn’t realize the need until 2:30 that Friday afternoon — 40 hours after friends reported he was gone. His body was found about 10:30 a.m. the next day in a field west of town, near the Clovis Fun Center off U.S. 84.

“If we’d started earlier, we might have found him alive,” she said.

We now know Casey was last seen alive and well around noon on June 24, but he pressed a Life Alert button about 10:30 that night. The device told officials he might be in trouble, but didn’t provide his location. When first responders went to his house, he wasn’t there.

New Mexico State Police first alerted media Casey had gone missing with a Silver Alert emailed at 11:42 p.m. on June 24. It also posted the alert to its Twitter account. Media outlets began posting the report on their websites, about 6:30 on the morning of June 25.

Clovis police posted the alert on their Facebook page about 9:30 the morning of June 25.

Hundreds of area residents posted reports on private social media platforms throughout the day on June 25. Many also checked alleys behind their homes and workplaces, where Casey was known to look for recyclable cans.

Clovis Police Capt. Roman Romero said a Special Operations Unit of CPD was deployed in an effort to find Casey. “Officers not assigned to calls were also utilized,” Romero said. Other law enforcement agencies and various mobile departments within the city — including sanitation and parks — were asked to be on the lookout.

But Romero pointed out that missing people alerts are rare in Clovis and “there are no partnerships regarding search parties and responses to this type of incident.”

Griego said about 80 people — some walking, some in Jeeps, some on four-wheelers, some using dogs that helped send everyone in the right direction — helped in the volunteer search that Friday evening and Saturday morning.

No time or cause of death had been determined late last week and we may never know why Casey was in that field, though family members said he had occasional bouts with dementia.

Griego said she doesn’t blame police for not finding Casey; they did all they could with the resources they have. And there was no shortage of volunteers helping.

Said Romero: “First Responders were joined by sanitation workers, mail delivery persons, and every manner of people in our town, searching for a man many people had seen in passing. Some people helped because they knew Mr. Casey, others helped because it is what we do in a close community.”

As a community, we have a lot to feel good about in our response to one man’s need for help.

But what if we’d been more organized, quicker to action?

In that case, Josefita Griego wants to know, could we have saved Bob Casey?

— David Stevens

Publisher