‘We were inundated’: Calgary police struggled during search for Parker

An internal Calgary police review found during the search for 11-year-old Parker Wells, CPS received an unprecedented amount of tips and information. The review makes recommendations to improve future searches, but doesn't say if changes would have affected the outcome. Parker disappeared on July 16, triggering the largest missing person response in CPS history. He was found dead roughly two weeks later in a network of underground pipes. We cannot change the outcome of this case. What we can do is learn from it, make meaningful improvements, and ensure we are better prepared the next time our community needs us. During the search, police say they received about 1,000 formal tips, 90,000 social media messages, and 10 terabytes of CCTV footage. The review recommends creating a centralized tip management system and better information sharing standards. We were inundated. We didn't have the capability and the capacity with our systems and our processes to be able to manage all those tips as quickly as what we could have. When we went back and looked at all of the tips, all of the evidence, all of the information, there was nothing that was missed. But it was challenging at the time to do that. The review also says key personnel developed extensive knowledge that was difficult to transfer between shifts or personnel rotation. Roles, responsibilities, and activation thresholds were not always clearly understood across all groups involved in the response, and supporting infrastructure, server capacity, licensing models, technical support, and trained user availability were strained by the scale of demand. Some of that is technology, some of that is processes, some of that is policy, some of that is additional people. The review recognized officers' commitment and professionalism, but also calls for more clarity around staffing roles and a clearer framework for public alerts. The mayor says the review highlights resource and staffing needs. For us as a council to ensure that our 911, our Calgary Police Service and other first responders have the resources that they need is going to be top of mind for us in our budget discussions. CPS says it's already started to change its policies and procedures based on the recommendations. Brendan Coulter, CBC News, Calgary.