good afternoon my name is Lieutenant Keith Bish I am a lieutenant here in the Milwaukee Police Department currently assigned as the commanding officer of the Cold Case unit I want to thank you all for coming this afternoon to this very important press conference on the 10-year anniversary on The Disappearance of Alexis Patterson throughout the room I've assembled some poster boards uh boards which display information and have significant views of different Street Scenes I will address some of these poster boards uh during my little talk as well as a presentation and if you have any questions afterwards we can discuss the poster boards also in the near future the slideshow presentation on the front screen here will be made available to the community and the media through our public relations person Annie Schwarz and that slideshow presentation also has photographs and documents that could prove valuable in energizing this investigation and bringing new information to light what I'd like to do for you at this time is provide a brief overview of the Milwaukee Police Department's investigation Into The Disappearance of Alexis Patterson in doing so I believe it would be appropriate to describe the investigation in three phases somewhat of a timeline obviously the first phase was where we where we had been the phase uh currently where we are now and the next phase where will we be going in the future phase one started on May Friday May 3rd 2002 at about 3:00 p.m. the Milwaukee Police Department received a call reporting a missing 7-year-old girl the child mother also contacted reporting that her daughter failed to return home from school after attending a nearby neighborhood School within a relatively short period of time uniformed officers from District Number 3 and a supervisor were dispatched to investigate later that same evening additional resources were secured from the sensitive crimes division to assist in the investigation as you all know missing person investigations by their nature present some of the most compelling issues facing law enforcement today the first few hours are the most critical to the successful recovery of the child but they can also be the most Troublesome and chaotic law enforcement agencies have a policy or a procedure along with a ple pre-planned response for these missing in investigations in in addition the use of every available resource is vitally important allocating resources appropriate to the manner to conduct an organized and systematic thorough investigation is what makes them successful you also know that there's a number of different categories for missing persons a few include but are not limited to runaways lost children stranger abductions suspicious circumstances and parent or family abductions now in this particular case the responding officers made contact with the parents and they conducted an initial interview of the parents some witnesses and also nearby school officials in addition the officers made an assessment of a crime scene or a scene that could be included with which uh consisted of the missing's residents the nearby school and and obviously the neighborhood surrounding the missing's residents officers further obtained photographs of the child along with a detailed description clothing worn and any personal items that she may have had in her possession at the time she went missing this information was immediately broadcast to police units throughout the city as well as given to the media in hopes that it would would generate a additional tips and leads the Milwaukee Police Department continued their investigation and commenced an extensive neighborhood canvas that included door too door to-door contacts searching alleys checking vacant residents the search was eventually expanded to include some geographic grid searching and if you remember at one point the Milwaukee Police Department relocated its mobile command post to a permanent location within Washington Park in the days that followed the report of Alexis Patterson's disappearance literally hundreds of Law Enforcement Officers detectives supervisors from the Milwaukee Police Department Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office and other Metropolitan law enforcement agencies were involved in the search and investigated tips and leads into Alexis's disappearance the Milwaukee Police Department dedicated Resources 24 hours Round the Clock and this included uniformed officers from the patrol Bureau uniformed officers and detectives from the sensitive crimes divisions and detectives from the criminal investigation Bureau during the subsequent weeks the Milwaukee Police Department also requested the services of the local office of the FBI to look into The Disappearance of Alexis Patterson these law enforcement officials included Agents from the local Milwaukee office as well as special agents from the national center for the analysis of violent crimes at FBI headquarters in quano Virginia in the months and years that followed the initial report of Alexis's disappearance the Milwaukee Police Department continued to dedicate resources into conducting this investigation to date approximately 5,000 interviews were conducted of individuals associated with the case and these names have subsequently been indexed into the case File we've reviewed thousands of criminal offense in the Milwaukee Police Department database we've reviewed thousands of criminal arrest records we've reviewed field interview databases we conducted geographical grids searches we've reviewed Department of Corrections databases for probation and paroi files we reviewed the per the sexual registered sexual offender files files and we've conducted and reviewed NCC offline searches we've executed search warrants we've traveled and investigated leads and tips both locally throughout the state and actually throughout the United States of America we've also worked with the national Center for missing and exploited children and the namus organization the national missing and unidentified um person system to provide valuable information on their database which is searchable by the community moving into phase two in late 2009 the missing investigation of Alexis Patterson was assigned to the Cold Case unit in Milwaukee Police Department where I am fortunate to have some of the most experienced and dedicated investigators in the department we have Revisited the entire case File which now stands at in in excess of 10,000 Pages we've conducted additional interviews and reins of approximately 65 individuals we've traveled out of town 13 different occasions to conduct interviews we've worked with the state of Wisconsin division of criminal investigation to design a Cold Case planing card which is pictured on one of our poster boards these cards are circulated within the correctional facilities throughout the state of Wisconsin in an effort in an effort to generate new leads and tips we've also participated in a interview of a organization filming a documentary on a news series for missing persons but most importantly I repeat most importantly the most important thing we've been able to do is reestablish our relationship with the Patterson family to ensure that we to ensure that we keep the lines of communications open and to establish a trust and working relationship toward pursuing a common goal and that goal of course is finding their lost or abducted child Alexis Patterson as we go into phase three I just want to say that the Milwaukee Police Department is grateful to the past and current dedicated law enforcement officers who work this difficult and emotionally draining case we know that one of the best ways to further our goal of bringing about a Swift and safe recovery of every missing child is to respond to the needs of law enforcement and the individual officers who are on the front lines of child protection with the 10y year anniv AR of The Disappearance of Alexis Patterson upon us the Milwaukee Police Department would like to emphasize to the community to the parents family relatives and friends that this case is still actively being investigated by dedicated and experienced investigators from this agency and we would encourage anyone who might have any information regarding Alexis's disappearance to contact the Cold Case unit of the Milwaukee Police police department at 414 9351 1212 as you know recent cases in the nation uh prove that when a case remains active in the community and the media information is developed and children have been located after being missing for extended periods of time please keep in mind that no piece of information is too small or what someone would believe is irrelevant might just be the breaking the case that we're looking for or the piece of the puzzle that completes the picture for us I also remind you that working together we are able to provide even greater protection to those who are least able to protect themselves our children [Music]