Missing man found in downtown shelter
Posted December 20, 2011 9:16 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Family members were overjoyed that their missing loved one was found Tuesday, but their mood was dampened because they say police had him in their custody on two occasions and let him go.
Rocco Morra, the 64-year-old East Gwillimbury man reported missing last week, was found safe at a Salvation Army shelter on College Street, near University Avenue, on Tuesday morning.
There was great concern for his well-being because he suffers from schizophrenia.
“When I saw him I was just overwhelmed and started, literally, just crying,” nephew Enzo Morra said. “I just couldn’t believe it was actually him.”
Relatives had spent the past few nights downtown searching for Morra, who was reported missing Dec. 13 after he walked away from his assisted living facility. They also handed out flyers at Yonge-Dundas Square and at Union station and searched hospitals across the GTA and posted notices in homeless shelters.
But Rocco Morra’s family was disappointed that two different police forces picked him up in the past week and let him go, despite the widespread missing person’s report.
His sister Angela Morra found an $85 fine in his pocket dated Dec. 13 for jay walking along Highway 403 near Erin Mills
“I am so upset,” she told CityNews. “A homeless person walking on the street on a highway and they let him go?”
Family members also said a Toronto cab driver dropped him off at 41 division on the first night of his disappearance because he refused to pay a $175 fare. And once again they say police let him go.
“It’s sad that cops had two opportunities to find my uncle,” Joseph Morra said. “And it took two people that were in a shelter that are in need to recognize him and report it to staff and call us.”
The OPP and Toronto police say they will investigate if formal complaints are filed, which the family says it plans to do.
Shelter staff contacted police once they recognized the missing man after he had signed in.
“When I arrived this morning it was as if it was Christmas Day already because they’re all just excited,” shelter director Major Carson Durdle said.
