LAURENS COUNTY, Ga. — It's been two weeks of searching, with no luck, for Garland Warren.
He's a missing 82-year-old man from Laurens County. His family says he has dementia and drove away from his home in Rentz. He was last seen on June 10, asking for directions at the Frozen Joe's in Crawford County.
Since then, the Spalding County Sheriff's Office has arrested two people for allegedly stealing the car that Warren drove off in. He is still missing.
Laurens County Sheriff's Office investigator Robbie Toney said Georgia has an alert system that goes out when people like Warren go missing.
"A Silver Alert, and a Mattie's Call are the same thing in the state of Georgia," Toney said.
Mattie's Call was started in Georgia in 2006 for disabled and missing people. Toney said before alerts go out, there are certain criteria they have to follow.
"We have to conduct our own investigation and we have to rule out any other possibility as to why the person is missing," Toney said.
The other criteria to follow for a call to be activated are:
- A local law enforcement agency believes a disabled person is missing and is in immediate danger of serious bodily injury or death.
- Through its own investigation, the law enforcement agency verifies the disappearance and eliminates alternative explanations for the disabled person's disappearance.
- Sufficient information is available to disseminate to the public that could assist in locating the disabled person.
- The missing disabled person is entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database.
- The law enforcement agency must issue a statewide broadcast to law enforcement/911 centers and contact local media regarding the missing person.
Toney said they issued a B.O.L.O. alert out the day Warren went missing, which alerts all law enforcement agencies in the state.
He said it gets sent to 911 centers, and it's up to them to deliver that information to all their employees. Two days later, they submitted their paperwork for a Mattie's Call to the G.B.I. who approved the call a few hours later.
Mattie's Calls are different from Amber Alerts, which are also known in Georgia as a Levi's Call.
Those are for abducted children and send alerts to cellphones, while a Mattie's Call alerts state agencies.
"I believe it goes to the Department of Transportation, and the billboards across the interstates. They will sometimes put a message up," Toney said.
He said he's reached out to Sen. Larry Walker to ask if the state would consider issuing phone alerts for Mattie's Calls.
He said last year, the state issued over 200 Mattie's Calls. He's afraid if alerts went out for every single Mattie's Call, on top of the Amber Alerts, people would choose to turn off all missing person alerts to avoid being bombarded.
Warren's family currently has a $10,000 reward for information that leads to finding Warren. Warren was last seen wearing blue jeans and a camouflage shirt. His family asks that if anyone sees him, to stay with him until 911 arrives.