Police still don\u2019t know how a Juneau man with autism ended up spending Wednesday night alone in the cold, half a mile from where he was last seen, but they aren\u2019t pressing him for answers right now.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s safe, and that\u2019s all that matters, police said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just seemed a little overwhelmed by the attention,\u201d Juneau Police Department spokesman Lt. David Campbell said Thursday.<\/p>\n
A pair of hikers found Ryan Harvey, 22, along the John Muir Trail as an extensive search was underway on and around the University of Alaska Southeast campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s still a lot of unanswered questions but the important thing is he\u2019s safe and he\u2019s home,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cWe can find that other stuff out later.\u201d<\/p>\n
Around 10 p.m. Wednesday night, the Juneau Police Department sent out a missing person alert via Facebook, asking the community to help them locate Harvey, who was last seen around 2:10 p.m. Wednesday leaving the UAS library. He had left his cellphone and his coat behind. Campbell said Harvey\u2019s family called the police later that day when they didn\u2019t hear from him, prompting an immediate missing \u201cvulnerable\u201d person search of the area.<\/p>\n
Around noon Thursday, almost 24 hours after Harvey went missing, two local hikers not part of the search party saw Harvey on the John Muir Trail, Campbell said. The two women recognized him from fliers and other social media announcements, and they were able to convince Harvey \u2014 who isn\u2019t very communicative because of his autism \u2014 that he should get in their car and out of the cold. The women took Harvey to a JPD Community Services Officer in the Auke Lake parking lot for help.<\/p>\n
A group of volunteers who were seeking shelter from the rain under the JPD Mobile Command Center\u2019s tent and gearing up for another search of the area heard the good news around 12:35 p.m. from JPD officer Jeff Brink.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s cold and wet, but he is in good hands,\u201d Brink said.<\/p>\n
The group of 10 people erupted in cheers, all smiling with looks of relief on their faces that Harvey was safe.<\/p>\n
Harvey went by the command center where the search for him had carried on throughout the night to briefly hang out with some of the officers and volunteers who looked for him, Campbell said. He enjoyed a slice of pizza and borrowed a warm sweater from a friend. Then he told his mom he just wanted to go home.<\/p>\n
Campbell said Harvey didn\u2019t require any medical attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur hope was to get an interview with him and gain some more understanding of what was going on \u2026 but we figured we\u2019ll let him go home with mom,\u201d Campbell said.<\/p>\n
UAS spokesperson Keni Campbell told the Empire that Harvey is not a current university student, but he has taken classes in the past and he frequently hangs out at the campus because it\u2019s a place he feels \u201ccomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n
A university-wide email was sent out by Michael Ciri, UAS vice chancellor for administration, Wednesday morning encouraging everyone on campus to take part in \u201cperiodic sweeps of campus buildings around the Auke Lake area\u201d to help locate Harvey.<\/p>\n
The university also set up a web tool to help those searching mark off area of the campus that were searched and when they were searched, to make sure efforts weren\u2019t being duplicated.<\/p>\n
Tiff Johnson, one of the volunteers at the JPD command center when the news of Harvey\u2019s recovery was announced, said she had just showed up 30 minutes earlier and didn\u2019t get to actually search because \u201cgood news came fast and it was amazing to witness the good news.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a mother myself and the thought of my child missing just chills me to the bone,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI wanted to help in any way that I could.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson said she learned about the search from JPD\u2019s Facebook post, which was shared over 900 times with several people also commenting that they left their homes late Wednesday night to help with the search.<\/p>\n
\u201c(I\u2019m) very grateful he was found unharmed and (is) with his mom where he belongs,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
Second search<\/strong><\/p>\n Coincidentally, there is another search going on for a second missing person in Juneau.<\/p>\n Roughly 10 hours before alerting the public about Harvey being missing, Juneau police announced early Wednesday<\/a> morning that Christopher Edward Orcutt, also 22, hasn\u2019t been seen since the night of Aug. 25.<\/p>\n JPD said Orcutt, who is homeless, went missing after he left a party at an apartment over a downtown store. Orcutt had left the party intoxicated and forgot several of his clothing layers and his cellphone, police said.<\/p>\n [Juneau police search for missing homeless man, last seen leaving downtown party<\/a>]<\/p>\n A relative of Orcutt\u2019s who stores most of his belongings at his home said Orcutt has not stopped by since Aug. 25.<\/p>\n Police confirmed that Orcutt did not take a ferry or flight out of town.<\/p>\n Anyone with information about Orcutt\u2019s whereabouts can call JPD at 586-0600. A photo of Orcutt can be found at the Juneau Police Department\u2019s FB page or at juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n Read more news:<\/strong><\/p>\n Strong wind, heavy rain likely in Southeast through Saturday<\/a><\/p>\n In solidarity with Standing Rock, Juneau rally opposes Dakota Access pipeline<\/a><\/p>\n Late-night construction downtown <\/a>angers hotel guest, residents<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Police still don\u2019t know how a Juneau man with autism ended up spending Wednesday night alone in the cold, half a mile from where he was last seen, but they aren\u2019t pressing him for answers right now. He\u2019s safe, and that\u2019s all that matters, police said. \u201cHe just seemed a little overwhelmed by the attention,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":21012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-21011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21011"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}