From the loudspeakers of New York police patrol cars and search vehicles, Avonte Oquendo's mother calls for him.
She urges the 14-year-old autistic boy to walk toward the flashing blue and white lights of the emergency vehicles that have been combing the streets for him.
The recording is part of the New York Police Department's stepped up search efforts to find Avonte, who was last seen on surveillance video running out of Center Boulevard School in Long Island City on the afternoon of October 4, Keith Brooks, director of operations for CityWide Disaster Services, said Thursday.
"Avonte, this is your mother. You are safe. Walk toward the lights," the message repeats.
The hope is the teen, who is unable to communicate verbally, will hear the sound of his mother's voice and approach the emergency vehicles.
In New York, a city-wide search is underway for a missing autistic boy, 14, who disappeared two weeks ago.
“A source close to the investigation tells CNN searches are concentrating on a five-block area around the school with particular focus on a marshy landfall, thinking cameras don't show the child going into the neighborhood so he may have headed towards the water,” reports CNN's Don Lemon.
But the young boy’s father believes he's elsewhere.
“I look at it it's part of their job to do that. but I'm pretty sure he's not there,” he says. “He didn't like—he didn't have some kind of feeling toward water, large bodies of water.”
Lemon reports, “water, an ominous fear for these parents.
“For now, they're keeping positive, trying to find one young boy among millions, one family with an entire city behind them.”
I pray for you every night! 🙁
Reblogged this on Meir Weiss' Blog.