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Missing Autistic Teen's Family Desperately Seeks Volunteers
By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Oct 20, 2013
Modified Oct 20, 2013
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Jen Chung / Gothamist
By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Oct 20, 2013
Modified Oct 20, 2013
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The search for missing autistic teen Avonte Oquendo has gotten even more frantic now that over two weeks have passed since he went missing from his Queens school—and his family is rallying volunteers to help bring their son home.
Though the NYPD has employed dozens of intensive search techniques in hopes of locating 14-year-old Avonte, who fled his Long Island City school on October 4th, they have not yet recovered him. Avonte cannot communicate verbally, and though over $70,000 in reward money has been offered for information leading to his return, his parents hope cobbling a network of volunteers might be the answer. "We just want to request that everybody take 5 minutes just to look," his father Daniel Oquendo said at at Reverend Al Sharpton's Harlem headquarters yesterday. "If we pay a little more attention to each other, we may be able to see things." They have set up a search base on 51st Avenue and Center Boulevard, and say volunteers have been dropping by hoping to help out.
Sharpton himself pledged a $5,000 reward from his National Action Network to anyone with information that can lead to Avonte's return. He also called out Avonte's special needs public school in Long Island City, the Central Boulevard School, for failing to stop the teenager from leaving the premises. "Somewhere between the lack of supervision and the lack of concern, Avonte did not make it to class," he said. "When the parents do what is responsible and entrust you with a child with special needs, you expect them to be responsible for that child."
Meanwhile, Avone's mother Vanessa Fontaine anxiously awaits her son's safe return. "It feels like eternity every day, you know, just waiting to hear news,” she said. “It’s just terrible—it’s just like a nightmare I can’t wake up from."
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al sharpton
avonte oquendo
missing autistic boy
queens
Rebecca Fishbein
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