Christopher Young

Christopher Young

Christopher S. Young has been active in Search and Rescue since 1981, managed searches since 1986, is the past reserve Captain for the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s SAR Team and serves as chairman of the Bay Area Search and Rescue Council, Inc. Chris is an Instructor Trainer for the “Managing the Lost Person Incident” and “Urban Search Management” (developed by Chris) for the National Association for Search and Rescue as well as specialized topics in Search Management, and Intelligence/Investigation/Interviewing in SAR. Chris has also written, published and presented search management papers at conferences all over the United States, and Internationally as well at William Syrotuck Symposiums on Search Theory and Practice. He is co-author of the book “Urban Search – Managing Missing Person Searches in the Urban Environment” and author of the new book “Intelligent Search – Managing the Intelligence Process in the Search for Missing Persons”
Intelligent Search – Managing the Intelligence Process in the Search for Missing Persons

23 Oct 9:30 AM - 10:15 AM

The Search Intelligence Process of gathering information regarding the missing subject occurs during every search incident. We recognize intelligence information is used to build a subject profile; gather lists of people with firsthand knowledge of the missing subject that we want to talk to; and task investigators to research and mine information from various sources, like social media or cell phone data, to determine where to look and what to look for. However, during the initial stage of an active search for a missing person, intelligence gathering can be very daunting, chaotic, haphazard or worse not initiated thus delaying the compiling of crucial information that could shorten the time it takes to locate the subject. In any other aspect of the search operation like ground searching or technical rope rescue we preplan, train and develop processes to be more efficient. This presentation is a synopsis of the book “Intelligent Search – Managing the Intelligence Process in the Search for Missing Persons” authored by Christopher Young and will and will review:

  • An overview for those engaged in missing person investigations and what does law enforcement and search and rescue bring to the incident
  • What is intelligence and the process from gathering raw data, analysis to dissemination into actionable intelligence in a missing person incident. This includes where it can fail if not processed properly
  • The searcher and planning data to obtain and the use of missing person questionnaires
  • The face-to-face interview including the setting, demeanor and whom to interview
  • Other types of interviews including post search, remote, in the field and door to door
  • Other sources of information including: social media and the internet, crowdsourcing; metadata from photos, cell phone forensics, IMSI catchers and geolocation services
  • Prepare pre-plans for the gathering of intelligent information prior to a missing person incident
  • Developing lists of reflex tasks for the intelligence process
  • Develop ongoing training curricula with the goal of creating efficiencies and hone the necessary skills to perform the intelligence gathering process