Press conference Feb. 1st. transcribed.
Chief - We would like anyone to look at any surveillance video they may have, look and see if there are any photos they may have captured in this area that may have something that we would be interested in. If there is anybody who has any knowledge of the last time Codi was out and about in the city of Hampton or elsewhere, we want to know. That is at any point in time if anyone has seen the child that...you've seen his photo hopefully. Hopefully we've all shared his photo. We are interested in speaking to anyone who has ever seen him. That information is going to be very important to us. In particular, if we could focus our attention on the time that extends from around noon this past Sunday up until yesterday morning at 9 o'clock. We are really interested in speaking to people who may have been in this area around those times. That would be very helpful to us. Sergeant Williams will talk more about how to get that information to us and again that's what we're going to be focusing our attention on. I will say we continue to speak to the people responsible for Codi's safety. They are still talking to us, they're still answering our questions. We still believe that they are the key to us finding out where he might be and what may have happened to him.
Reporter - Is that why there's no Amber Alert?
Chief - There is no Amber Alert because we worked with Virginia State Police to discuss the criteria which we are deeply familiar with. This case is not an Amber Alert case.
Williams - So some additional points that we want to cover this morning is - we are establishing a role for the general public to help us assist in this search. So at the conclusion of this press conference we're going to have a link available on our social media sites that enables the public to sign-up to assist us. At this time we're only seeking the first 50 volunteers. We need to be able to co-ordinate the volunteers and be able to determine where they're searching and have an accurate way to track where those volunteers are going to be working with our staff. Some important things to know about that is - the volunteers need to be capable of walking long distances outside in the cold weather and we're asking them to have a valid photo ID available. As I said, the first 50 are only going to be used and after you sign-up please wait to be contacted. We'll contact you if we need you.
Additionally, I want to reiterate the point Chief Talbot said about we're seeking information about when the public saw Codi last. When that was, where he was, who he was with and what they were doing. That information is extremely important to us and it's extremely important to the investigation. You can get that information to us by visiting P3 tipster.com, you can follow the prompts on there to submit a tip to Hampton Police and we'll be able to receive and review those tips. We might not be able to respond to every tip that we receive, but it's important to know that we have received it and we're going to pass it on to the appropriate personnel. You can also contact us at the crimeline at 888lockyouup.com. With regard to the Amber Alert - we've received numerous questions in terms of why an Amber Alert has not been issued. We have basically determined that the criteria for the Amber Alert has not been met. We have confirmed with state police on numerous occasions to confirm that, that criteria is not met and the specific elements of the criteria that has not been met refers to....at this point we don't believe that an abduction has taken place. There's no information to lead investigators to believe that Codi has been abducted and we don't have information to pass on or to fit the criteria with regard to that element. Another element would be, who the abductor would be, where that abductor's travelling, what they're wearing, what vehicle they're in. That element of the criteria simply does not exist, so aside from that we're using all of our available resources to put this information and get it out to the public. Of course with the medias assistance all of our social media....this story has been shared hundreds of thousands of times and we ask you to continue to share that, to get this information out. That's all I have for you this morning and we'll take questions as we can answer them to the best of our ability.
Reporter - Is Codi's mum around? Is she here in town?
Chief - Codi's mum is in town and we are speaking to her.
Reporter - (
Couldn't catch what she asked)
Chief - There are a number of people beyond his parents that we are speaking to.
Reporter - Why don't you believe he was abducted?
Chief - The investigation does not indicate that he was abducted. There's just no reason to believe it. We certainly are open to that as a possibility. It is not likely.
Reporter - The circumstances around when he was last seen - is that reliable information from his dad or...?
Chief - No it is not reliable.
Reporter - Is that the reason for the new timeline, the not reliable information from family?
Chief - The evidence that we have does not completely match the stories that we have received at this point. So we are opening up our focus in terms of the time that we are interested in.
Reporter - Do you believe Codi is still alive (
inaudible)?
Chief - We will work as if he's out there, waiting for us to find him.
Reporter - What agencies are involved in the search at this point?
Williams - The biggest agency that has joined the search this morning is Virginia Department of Emergency Management. They will be bringing in additional resources and personnel to assist in the search........Staff, equipment, mainly staff and equipment at this point. Personnel, expertise things of that nature.
(
Reporter asks about the decision to let the community help with the search.)
Chief - We have a role to play for our residents, not only will the residents be instrumental in getting us the information that we need to figure out what happened. Make no mistake about it - the information is here. We believe the information is here, we want to bring the residents into this in a way that makes sense given our resources and given what we know and what we learned throughout the investigative process has led us to want to bring the public in to expand the possibility of searching. Not only what we've already done, we're going to have them go back and look again to make sure you know....sometime in the middle of the night we didn't miss a small detail that might be instrumental, but as I said there's a role to play here.
(
Reporter asks about narrowing down the information and the circumference of the search.)
Chief - It is likely that he is here in the city of Hampton. It is more likely that he is here close to his home which is adjacent to me, here to my left and to your right. So the further that we get away from his home, the less likely it is that he is going to be found and the less likely that we're going to find information. We haven't ruled anything out. We are searching the hardest in the areas where he is most likely to be found obviously, but also further out.
Reporter - Can you expand a little bit on - you just said that the evidence does not match the stories we have heard. Can you expand on that, what did you mean by that?
Chief - I think that's self explanatory. The evidence doesn't match what we've been told, so we need to investigate further and we need the help of the public so that we can find anybody who may have seen this child, or even anything that might be related to this investigation. We feel strongly that somebody listening can be helpful. We feel very strongly about that.
Reporter - Have the parents not told you enough to connect the dots on the stories that are not adding up with the evidence that there is?
Chief - We probably won't know for certain how much is being left out until we find this child.
Reporter - But isn't that really the concerning thing, that the parents, the people that were responsible for his safety are telling you stories that are not adding up to the evidence that you have?
Chief - That is the crux of the investigation. We have to figure that out.
Reporter - Last night we saw crews searching through dumpsters, neighbours, is that just part of searching the whole area?
Chief - We will search every place he could possibly be. Every place he could possibly be we will look. We're not searching dumpsters because we believe he is there. We are searching dumpsters because he could be there.
Reporter - There was a dumpster search last night, nothing came of that or did something come from that?
Williams - So as with any investigation with regard to specific evidence that we find or did not find we're not able to go into that at this time. So anything, any questions in that regard, evidence that we're locating or have located we're not able to expand on that at this time.
Reporter - Chief is there a person of interest at this time?
Chief - There is a person of interest. We are most interested in Cody's parents.
Reporter - Are there any water searches going on in the area at this time?
Chief - Yes.
Reporter - Are you doing a door to door search around here?
Chief - Yes.
Reporter - What's the situation with Codi's parents, they were separated or together...?
Chief - Codi's parents do not live together.
ETA: There was a couple of questions I only caught the response to not the question, so I didn't post. Have now found out what one of them was.
Question - Chief was asked about a history of neglect and he declined to comment.
Courtesy of @Allabouttrial
