Citizen Alert Leads to the Recovery of Missing 103-Year Old Man
Revisiting one of our favorite stories from last year, when a Citizen alert led to the safe return of Mr. Shao, who had gone missing in downtown New York.
On June 18th, 2018, Lixin Shao and his eldery father were spending time together in Columbus Park, watching a game of chess. At one point while Lixin wasn’t fully paying attention, his father Lin, who uses a motorized wheelchair, took off into the distance. Panicked, Lixin searched the area to no avail, went back to check his father’s apartment, continued to scour the neighborhood, and eventually called 911 for help.
Nearly a mile away, Melissa McIntyre was riding her bike home down the Lower East Side, when she caught an unusual sight out of the corner of her eye — an elderly man in a wheelchair struggling around a pothole on the side of the road.
Not thinking too much of it—assuming a nearby jogger would assist—she continued home, eventually telling this story to her fiancé Ken.
As Ken listened wide-eyed, he pulled out his phone to show Melissa a notification he had just received from Citizen.
“SEARCH FOR MISSING ELDERLY MAN IN WHEELCHAIR—Police are searching for a 103-year old Asian man in an electrical wheelchair last seen in Columbus Park. Please contact police if you see him. Tap for full description.”
The in-app Citizen update continued to describe the missing: “The man is described as a 103-year-old Asian man in an electrical wheel chair last seen in Columbus Park wearing a beige baseball hat and black-and-green checkered shirt.”
Melissa couldn’t believe it—she realized she had just seen this man.
The couple called the police, describing the exact location she had seen the elder Mr. Shao, and within minutes, the father was reunited with his son.
Melissa jumped right into the Citizen comments to update the community.
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