49°
Officers spent hours trying to identify the young man with no success, since he could not speak.
Transported to a local hospital for his safety, police were faced with no other option than to await a 911 call from the young man’s family. Happily, the teen was eventually reunited with his family.
That incident led to the launch of new missing persons software developed by the department and Fairfield University’s School of Engineering.
Called the ‘SafeReturn Network,’ it's a computer database where local residents may log information about loved ones with autism, dementia, Alzheimer’s and other individuals who are prone to wandering.
Officer Michael C. Stahl, a Fairfield class of 2010 alumnus, came up with the idea that became SafeReturn.
After Stahl contacted the school, university chair of software engineering Wook-Sung Yoo offered his services.
Yoo has extensive experience in healthcare software, and he enlisted two of his students to take on the project. Graduate students Michael Marrero and Ebenezer Rodriquez Vidal made it their capstone project, an endeavor prior to their graduation.
The engineering team's program allows Fairfield residents to register photographs, contact information, and major details about family members. The database allows searching by variables like name, physical characteristics and age.
Officers can open a gallery of photographs and filter those photos based on physical characteristics and subsequently match a photo with the person standing in front of them.
SafeReturn registration forms are available at Fairfield Police Headquarters, located at 100 Reef Road in Fairfield, or online at www.fpdct.com/safereturn.
For more information, call the Police Department at 203-254-4800 or email Stahl at mstahl@fairfieldct.org
Click here to follow Daily Voice Fairfield and receive free news updates.
