Mother of missing autistic teen found safe claims police search lacked urgency

Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) say a missing and vulnerable autistic teenager has been found safe, but his mother claims the police search lacked urgency.

The 18-year-old left his Peterborough area home through a window on the night of Oct. 13.

“As a result of the ongoing search efforts, on October 30, 2024, at approximately 8:45 a.m., the missing person was located safe by officers in an abandoned building that had been searched regularly, as it was identified as one of his regular hideouts,” police said in a statement, adding he had been transported to hospital as a precaution.

The teen’s mother, Jenny Tozer, said she was overwhelmed with joy when she had heard Logan had been found.

“I wasn’t expecting the call and I was actually expecting a call eventually with bad news. So when they said that he was ok but he was going to get assessed at the hospital. I couldn’t stop shaking,” said Tozer.

However, she claims the police search lacked urgency. “It was like, ‘Oh, he’s 18, he’s an adult. He can do kind of his own thing’.”

Tozer had alerted authorities about her son’s condition when he first went missing, but she feels that little action was taken. It wasn’t until he had been missing for 14 days that a search and rescue team was finally assembled.

“It shouldn’t matter what age, we should still look for them for safety reasons. That’s why I kind of wish there was an alert or something,” added Tozer.

Kate Dudley Logue, VP of Community Outreach for Ontario Autism Coalition, agreed.

“It’s pretty frustrating that there wasn’t more urgency involved here, they didn’t put a search and rescue team in place until day 14 which is astounding when you think about it … Any number of things could have gone wrong and we could be looking at a very different ending to this story,” said Logue.

“If this had been a younger child, there would have been more urgency. I think what needs to be taken into consideration is, when you’re talking about somebody with a disability that puts them in a vulnerable situation, we should be treating it like it is a child.”