Search for missing 5-year-old boy intensifies
Thursday, August 13, 2009 | 5:07 PM
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The Oakland homicide division is now involved in the search for 5-year-old Hasanni Campbell who has been missing since Monday. Police say it is because they need the additional personnel, and not because they consider it a murder case. A wrecking yard was the latest focus of their investigation.
The focus of the search returned to the Rockridge area Thursday afternoon. Police sent 30 officers back into the neighborhood to visit homes and businesses they may have missed in the past couple days.
He has taken a polygraph but he didn't tell me what the results were, but he did tell me he spoke truthfully, answered all questions, but I haven't spoken to anyone about it," said attorney John Burris.
Police will not confirm whether Ross took or passed the polygraph.
ABC7 News has learned that detectives have visited an auto salvage yard in Hayward over the past two days. Employees there say Ross was there before the boy disappeared on Monday, and that the boy waited in the car while Ross searched the yard for car parts. Police confirm that they have been searching in that area as well as many others. They have also searched a levee behind the salvage yard.
Police have clarified that the boy is disabled, but does not wear leg braces, but instead wears orthotics inside his shoes. He is able to walk, although with some difficulty.
VIDEO: Search for missing 5-year-old boy intensifies
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=6964325
Article:
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=6964246
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VIDEO: Missing E. Bay Boy's Foster Dad Speaks Out
http://cbs5.com/video/?id=54010@kpix.dayport.com
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Police Go Door-To-Door In Search For East Bay Boy
Aug 13, 2009 5:14 pm US/Pacific
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Oakland police officers will be going door-to-door in the city's Rockridge neighborhood until the sun goes down today to search for information on the disappearance of a 5-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, police Sgt. Ray Backman said.
Backman said that there are about 300 homes and businesses in the area at which no one has been available to talk.
"We're going to go back out there, and the goal is maybe some of those people that weren't there, we can get a hold of," he said. "We're really trying to make sure that we're doing a really thorough canvas of the area."
Backman said a homicide detective has been assigned to the case along with eight special victims units.
"We're going to explore any and all possible outcomes of the case," he said.
Louis Ross and Jennifer Campbell, the foster parents of Hasanni, have been cooperating with the investigation, Backman said.
The FBI has joined Oakland police in the search.
"We're pretty much in our holding pattern right now," Backman said. "During daylight hours we're going to continue to canvas and search. We'll scale back the search at nighttime, and resume it again at daylight."
Article:
http://cbs5.com/local/oakland.missing.boy.2.1127861.html
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VIDEO: Missing E. Bay Boy's Foster Dad Speaks Out
http://cbs5.com/video/?id=54010@kpix.dayport.com
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Oakland homicide detective joins search for missing Fremont boy
Updated: 08/13/2009 05:05:54 PM PDT
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An Oakland homicide detective has joined the search for Hassani Campbell, the 5-year-old disabled Fremont boy who was reported missing Monday afternoon, police said.
The move comes the day after Louis Ross, the boy's foster father, took a polygraph test. Ross has declined to discuss the results.
"All I know is he told me he answered all the questions truthfully," said Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris, who is advising Ross and the boy's foster mother, Jennifer Campbell. "I called him, and that's what he told me."
Burris has not been formally retained by Ross.
"I don't think (he) needs an attorney," Burris said today. Campbell has declined to take a polygraph test because she is six months pregnant and is worried the test could harm her unborn baby, Burris said. She has not hired an attorney either.
Also today, Oakland police returned to Rockridge, trying to talk to people who have not been at home or at work on previous search attempts. A CHP helicopter in the air and police on the ground searched Coyote Hills Regional Park in Fremont, but what if anything was found is not known.
Campbell did not talk to reporters Wednesday but did show a different photo of the boy after emerging from upstairs.
No independent witnesses have come forward to report seeing the boy Monday in Oakland, police said. Some in the Rockridge area said they haven't seen the boy since last week. A few neighbors on Roxie Terrance in Fremont, where the family lives, said they have never seen the boy in the nine months he's lived there.
Ross and Campbell have been caring for the boy because the boy's biological mother, who lives in San Francisco, has drug and health problems, authorities said. Police have spoken to both the mother, Shemika L. Campbell, and the biological father, Ronald Hughes, also of San Francisco, but have not released details about those talks.
Article:
http://www.mercurynews.com/crime/ci_13052778?nclick_check=1
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FBI, police search Fremont home, park for boy
Posted: 08/13/2009 02:26:02 PM PDT
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police agencies searched a Roxie Terrace home Tuesday for clues in the disappearance of a 5-year-old Fremont boy.
Police also searched Karl Nordvik Park on Commerce Drive Wednesday morning, as well as nearby areas.
Police said there was no information leading them to believe the missing boy, Hassani Campbell, is at the park or in the surrounding area. The search is being done as a precautionary measure since he lives nearby.
The park is about a mile north from the two-story home where the missing boy lives with aunt Jennifer Campbell and her fiancŽ, Louis Ross, and two cousins.
Police and police dogs canvassed the Rockridge area Monday night, and several dozen police in cars, on bicycles and on foot continued the search Tuesday. Investigators also interviewed registered sex offenders living in the area, a routine procedure when a child disappears.
Authorities said Ross and Campbell have been cooperative but could be brought in for additional questioning.
An Oakland homicide investigator has been assigned to the case full time, according to Oakland police Sgt. Raymond Buckman.
Article:
http://www.fremontbulletin.com/ci_13054524
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Foster Dad Pleads for Safe Return of Missing Boy
Published: August 13, 2009
Filed at 5:29 p.m. ET
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The tearful foster father of a missing 5-year-old boy with cerebral palsy said Thursday he believes the child was kidnapped and pleaded for his safe return.
His foster father, Louis Ross, the last known person to see Hasanni, said the boy disappeared after he briefly left him outside his car in the rear parking lot of a shoe store where Ross' fiancee, Jennifer Campbell, works.
Ross said he went to the store's front entrance to ask Campbell to open the back door, but when he returned to the parking lot, Hasanni was gone.
''It has been nonstop,'' Oakland police Sgt. Ray Backman said. ''Given that it's a 5-year-old boy, time is a critical factor for us.''
The boy is still considered a missing person, not a kidnap victim, Backman said. Investigators were working with no significant clues and a limited amount of tips, he said.
''There's always that possibility he will be found,'' the sergeant said.
Ross said his family was cooperating with authorities, although he felt police believed he and Campbell did something wrong.
Ross has taken a polygraph test, but Campbell declined because she is six months pregnant and worried about any adverse effects.
Ross declined to discuss the results of his test.
The couple, who also have custody of Hasanni's year-old sister, were seeking advice from John Burris, a civil rights attorney.
Burris said they were surprised about being the focus of the investigation. Their house was searched and Hasanni's sister was taken from them and placed in protective custody, he said.
''What I told them is their boy is missing and that you have to cooperate, assuming that you did nothing wrong,'' Burris said. ''I told them, you were the last ones who saw him, so they are going to come to you.''
Backman said he understood the family was going through a trying time.
''A lot of the questions that we have to ask during the course of investigation are very intrusive because we want to explore all possibilities, however remote they might be,'' Backman said. ''We're trying to be as delicate as we can.''
He disappeared after Ross pulled his BMW into a rear parking lot behind the shoe store with Hasanni and his infant sister onboard. Ross said he was heading for an orientation at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto and then to his twice-weekly medical assistant class in Fremont.
Dropping the kids with Campbell is a family routine, Ross said. When he opened the rear passenger door for Hasanni, he said, the boy was unbuckling his seat belt.
''I said, 'Hasanni, go wait by the back door,' and he had already taken a first step out of the car,'' Ross said.
Ross said he grabbed Hasanni's sister and went to the front of the store and told Campbell to open the back door. He then went back to the parking lot.
''When I got to back there (Campbell) was already there. She says to me, 'Where's Hasanni?''' Ross said. ''I said, 'What do you mean?' I look to see if he's standing along by the car, but he's not.''
Article:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/08/13/us/AP-US-Missing-Boy.html
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Police Investigation of Missing Fremont Boy Continues
August 13, 2009 – 7:55 pm PT
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The search for missing five-year-old Hasanni Campbell continued Thursday as Oakland homicide investigators joined the on-going investigation.
Fremont Police Detective Bill Veteran said that kidnappings were “a rarity” in Fremont, where the boy is from. The most recent incident, he said, was a child abduction involving the child’s father, but that was several years ago. Abductions by strangers were especially rare, he said.
Ross refused to discuss legalities of the case with reporters, but the Oakland Tribune reported that he took a polygraph test today, although police could not be reached for comment.
Edward Wunsch, a Minnesota-based expert on child abduction cases, said that police perform polygraph tests to eliminate the possibility of parent’s involvement.
Ross told police on Monday that he parked his car near Shuz of Rockridge at 6012 College Ave where his fiancé, Hasanni’s aunt and foster mother, works. Ross said he went into the store to open a back door so his disabled son could enter more easily, but when he returned to the car, the boy was gone.
Police did not say whether any witnesses saw the five-year-old boy in the parked car.
Article:
http://oaklandnorth.net/2009/08/13/police-investigation-of-missing-fremont-boy-continues/
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UPDATED: Oakland homicide detective joins search for missing Fremont boy
Posted: 08/13/2009 09:20:56 PM PDT
Updated: 08/13/2009 09:31:20 PM PDT
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An Oakland homicide detective has been assigned to the case of Hassani Campbell, the 5-year-old disabled Fremont boy who was reported missing Monday afternoon, police said.
Oakland police Sgt. Ray Backman, a department spokesman, said such a move is not unusual in missing-persons cases.
The move came a day after Louis Ross, the boy's foster father, took a polygraph test. Ross has declined to discuss the results.
"All I know is he told me he answered all the questions truthfully," said Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris, who is advising Ross and the boy's foster mother, Jennifer Campbell.
Also Thursday, Oakland police returned to the city's Rockridge neighborhood, trying to talk to people who were not at home during previous search attempts. A CHP helicopter in the air and police on the ground searched Coyote Hills Regional Park in Fremont, but it was unknown whether anything significant was found.
No independent witnesses have come forward to report seeing the boy Monday in Oakland, police said.
Police have spoken to boy's biological parents, Shemika L. Campbell and Ronald Hughes, both of San Francisco, but have not released details about those talks. The boy's sister was taken into protective custody Monday.
Article:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_13064980