Capt. Sandra Tong: Police Beat

The July 15 Community/Police Forum was held at the Richmond Station and the topic was neighborhood nuisances. We had Donna Salazar from Community Boards of San Francisco (920-3820) as a guest speaker. Community Boards, the first mediation service of its kind, is a free conflict resolution service.

Since its inception in 1976, Community Boards has continued to offer fair and impartial mediation services for San Franciscans who are having difficulty resolving a conflict with neighbors, tenants, business owners, etc. If you have a frustrating situation that is more of a civil matter and does not involve criminal activity, Community Boards is an option you may want to explore.

On July 21, at approximately 3:30 p.m., a 74-year-old woman with Alzheimer's walked away from a vehicle while her husband was getting a prescription filled at Kaiser's French Campus on Geary Boulevard at Sixth Avenue. The members of Richmond Station performed an extensive search and followed all department protocols for "at risk" missing persons.

The following day, however, when the woman still had not been located, the service of the California Rescue Dog Association (CARDA), out of Santa Clara, were employed to track the woman's scent. A sample of clothing was presented to the two dogs. I, along with other members of Richmond Station, walked with the dogs to Golden Gate Park. The search was aborted when a woman matching our missing person's description was reported in the Park District by a concerned citizen who saw her in the area for several hours.

The woman turned out to be our missing person. She was in good health and good spirits.

Several weeks ago, we had a similar scenario when a young man drove his grandmother with him to a corner store. He left his grandmother in the car waiting while he went inside and when he returned to his car moments later, his grandmother was gone. She also suffered from Alzheimer's.

An extensive search was initiated immediately and the woman was located within a few hours. Fortunately, for the parties involved these stories have happy endings. The situations, though, are very serious and create an enormous amount of stress for the families of missing persons.

People suffering from Alzheimer's do not know how to ask for help. Often, they will wander for hours until someone reports them to police for a well-being check. People with Alzheimer's experience varying levels of forgetfulness or dementia and they are usually unable to provide police with their name and address. For these reasons, I want to offer a little advice for readers who may have an elder family member suffering with Alzheimer's or other memory loss conditions.

áÊDo not leave them unattended even for a few minutes. As you can see from the scenarios described above, it takes very little time for someone to wander out of sight;

á Report missing persons to the police immediately - by reporting them as soon as possible, we can exponentially improve our chances of locating them;

á Use an indelible marker to write their name on the inside label of their outer garments;

á Keep a current photograph handy to give to the police. You can have the photo returned when the missing person has been located.

Hopefully, by employing some of the strategies listed above, we can minimize the incidents of high-risk, missing persons. Finally, if you happen to see someone who seems lost, confused or appears to be waiting for long periods of time, do not hesitate to call police for a well-being check.

Do not forget to mark your calendars for Tuesday, Aug. 5 when the community and police come together for National Night Out. This year's event will be at the mini-park, located on Seventh Avenue between Geary Boulevard and Anza Street, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Join me and other members of the Richmond Station for a barbeque as we celebrate National Night Out's 20th anniversary.

The August Community/Police Forum will be held at the Richmond Station's Community Room on Tuesday, Aug. 19, at 7 p.m. At the request of the participants from last month's meeting, I am arranging for a guest speaker from the SF Department of Public Works to discuss the services it offers. See you there.

Capt. Sandra Tong is the commanding officer at the Richmond Police Station.