The Santa Fe New Mexican
Days remaining in session: 14
Finding the missing
The Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed a bill designed to help locate missing people — both children and adults — faster and more effectively.
Senate Bill 55, according to its sponsor, Sen. Sander Rue, R-Albuquerque, includes a timeline for when missing person information must be entered into law-enforcement data bases. “We are currently losing valuable time,” Rue said.
Rue said the bill also would require law-enforcement personnel to undergo training on the procedures of reporting and investigating missing people. He said there appears to be a lack of knowledge on the part of police and the general public of existing laws pertaining to missing persons.
Rue said the bill came out of a task force established by Lt. Gov. Diane Denish in the wake of last year’s discoveries of 11 bodies of women in a mass grave on Albuquerque’s West Mesa. Denish on Wednesday praised the the bill’s passage. SB55 now goes on to the House.
