New Philadelphia police chief joins missing persons task force
NEW PHILADELPHIA – The city’s police chief is part of a statewide missing persons task force.
Tessa Pohovey is one of two city police chiefs, the other being Dayton’s Kamran Afzal, on the 22-member Missing Persons Working Group. Gov. Mike DeWine’s office says the group will look for ways to improve Ohio’s efforts to track down missing adults and juveniles.
Pohovey says she was selected to represent smaller departments.
“Statewide, everybody is hurting for personnel, but we don’t have a designated missing persons team,” she said. “I’m going to be able to explain the way we handle it here in house, and for me see how some of these bigger agencies are handling it that have a designated unit for this.”
Other members of the group include officials from the State High Patrol, Bureau of Criminal Investigation and other federal, state and local agencies, as well as family members of missing individuals. Pohovey sees a need for more training and room for improvement in communication among the different agencies.
“There’s not a whole lot of training,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think there’s a lot of sharing of information statewide. The data bases available – I don’t think they’re very well known. So I think that’s going to be a big part of this – just making sure statewide we’re all on the same page with what resources are available to make sure we are doing all we can.”
The group will begin meeting Thursday. The governor’s office expects recommendations from the group by the end of April. Pohovey says the New Philadelphia Police Department located all 30 individuals who were reported missing in the city last year.