By JON BAKER

BRISTOL  —  When Seekonk Police Chief Ron Charron discovered Roger Williams University would host a training seminar entitled “Missing and Abducted Children: Response Initiatives for Call-takers, First Responders, Investigators and First-Line Supervisors,” it was something he couldn’t —- wouldn’t — ignore.

“We never have enough training in that area, and if a program is going to be offered, we’re going to jump at the chance for that kind of education,” he said. “We need to know if there are more protocols, procedures and the like. We want the latest information so we can keep on top of a situation, if it ever comes up, God forbid.”
Apparently, other regional chiefs felt the same way. Exactly 115 law enforcement officers representing five of the six New England states converged on the College of Arts and Sciences’s Room 157 to become more educated, and all walked away enlightened.
“For me personally, this hit home, the reason being I have young children, and I’ve worried about this kind of thing happening,” said Cumberland Patrolman Dennis Hicks of the seven-hour program, presented by Wayne Sheppard, the associate director of training and outreach for the Virginia-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. “I discovered how large a societal problem it is.
“I’m really glad I came,” he added. “It opened my eyes to the issue of missing kids, and how many there are out there. This gives me a better outlook as how to respond if I have it confront me. I honestly can say I have a better perspective on how to handle it.”
Said “teammate” Shane Gingras, a Cumberland dispatcher: “This was pretty exciting. It’s going to give me the tools I need as the call-taker to ask the right questions when confronted with such a case, and I’ll be able to relay that information to the first responders.
“It’s all about getting patrolmen or detectives the facts they need to find a child as quickly as possible.”
Attendees located in the Blackstone Valley area included: from Lincoln, Lt. Bill Sexton, Patrolman Russell Enos and dispatcher Pauline Metivier; from Cumberland, Hicks, Gingras and Patrolmen Jon Cook and Michael Ride; and from Seekonk, Capt. Craig Mace, Sgt. Michelle Hines and Lt. Frank John.

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The program came about, Bob McKenna said, at the insistence of Charlestown Police Lt. Jack Shippee. McKenna is the director of the Justice System Training & Research Institute at RWU.
“He had been to a similar seminar in Connecticut, and he knew there was a need in Rhode Island and in his community to address the subject,” said McKenna, a 20-year veteran of the East Providence Police Department. “He made a couple of inquiries to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children back in early December.
“What happened was, when everything was set up, Jack discovered there was such a large response, he knew he couldn’t have it at the Charlestown Police Barracks,” he added. “That’s when he called me. He knows Roger Williams has become a regular think-tank for deliveries of police career development training, so he asked me, and I said, ‘Of course.’
“It fits so well here because we have three components on police training here, including undergraduate and graduate studies, as well as the Justice System Training & Research Institute,” he added. “Broadly, this seminar provides police dispatchers, patrol officers, detectives and supervisors with the best practices and protocols for response to incidents involving missing children.”
McKenna brought up the nationally-renowned Molly Bish case out of Warren, Mass., the teen-age lifeguard who disappeared from a local lake years ago. Officials eventually found her remains not from her last known sighting.
“Jack told me that there were similarities in the two communities’ makeups, and recognized the need to get more education out there,” McKenna said. “He told me he thought we should open it up more. The proof behind Jack’s recognition was obvious by the number of law-enforcement personnel here.”
When asked, Sheppard jumped at the opportunity to address such a congregation, hailing from over 25 cities and towns in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont.
“The main thrust of this seminar was to provide a base of knowledge and focus to law enforcement people on the challenge of response and safe recovery of missing children,” noted Sheppard, a retired Pennsylvania state trooper. “In 2006, there were 833,000 missing persons. Of that amount, 73 percent were juveniles, the majority in their teens.
“When you look at the scope of the problem in the United States, any given day, 2,000 kids go missing — some of them come home, some do not,” he said. “Part of our focus is this: What can we do as law enforcement officers to create a robust environment for a timely and effective response?”

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After detailing statistics about such cases, Sheppard described of the different types of missing-children cases, among them runaways, family abductions, non-family abductions, online enticements and others.
“All of them have a common thread: The kid is missing, but they also are unique in that each needs a different response,” he said. “There is a difference between a runaway and, say, an online enticement … If it’s a runaway, is he or she running away from something or toward something, or both.
And, if a child is abducted, by a family member or not, is it a civil matter or a criminal matter? And what is the behavior of the offender? They’re all things which need to be analyzed.”
Sheppard also informed the officers that help can come from a variety of sources, including schools, hospitals, the community and even the media.
“Traditionally, law enforcement doesn’t like to deal with the media, but they must do the opposite and embrace those people,” he said. “After all, they’re the ones who can get the word out. I will say this: The best part of this day was talking about law enforcement reaching out and embracing other resources that can help them in their location of the child. After all, what good is a resource is you don’t use it?”
Mace, a 22-year Seekonk police veteran, understood what Sheppard called “power points.”“We’ve had missing children in the past, but usually they’re found in the house (they live in) or at a friend’s down the street,” he said. “The thing is, you can’t take anything for granted. What if they’re not at those locations? As time goes by, it gives the suspect more time to get away.
“I’ll also say it’s a concern for someone with Alzheimer’s,” he continued. “The foundation this has left can be used for a variety of people — children, people with Alzheimer’s or those in a confused state. Still, I’ve been surprised by a couple of things: First, the number of agencies available and willing to assist in such a situation: The FBI, NCMEC, state police, Amber Alert and others.
“The second would be that a local department wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel in terms of establishing policies and protocol in handling such cases. I’ve seen this kind of thing before in in-service training, but the more information you can get, the better off we’ll all be.”
Like Mace and his entourage, Lincoln’s Sexton promised he would bring his knowledge back to the station on Old River Road.
“This information will be presented to and disseminated by our officers, and we’ll do some training,” he said. “We’ll look at developing new policies based on what was learned here.”