Parents, coaches and student athletes gathered in the MVHS student parking lot to search for missing junior Connor Sullivan at 3:30 p.m. on April 22. Principal April Scott clarified that this was not a school organized event and that only student athletes with their team and coach could search, given that athletes have medical waivers on file.
Earlier that day, at 8 a.m., the Cupertino Community Emergency Response Team organized a search party supervised by the Sheriff’s Office in the parking lot between the Post Office and Vivi’s restaurant. Parents and other adult members of the community gathered in the morning, while the after school search also involved the wrestling, track and field and dance teams, along with other students who volunteered to coordinate the event.
How did students participate?
Students 18 and over can join search parties. However, minors are not permitted to participate in the physical search, even with parental permission, unless they are a member of a MVHS sports team. However, minors who are not on a sports team, though unable to participate in the actual searching, can still help the search parties by volunteering as a communicator between searchers and the Community Emergency Response Team. Students are enlisted to periodically text the dispersed groups and relay the information to supervisors.
How can parents help?
Parents can join search parties organized by CERT or volunteer as communicators between the searchers and supervisors.
Who organizes search parties?
Some search parties have been student-organized. The search party that gathered at 3:30 on school campus was not arranged by the school, but by CERT. CERT’s search parties are required to be supervised by the Sheriff’s Office. The police do not create, coordinate or run any volunteer search parties. None are school-affiliated.
“If you fell, if something happened, if your parents didn’t know where you were, if you got lost running in the hills,” Principal April Scott said, “we would have no way of knowing who is where.”
“I came out here this early because I felt it was my duty as a person of the community,” MVHS parent Zi Jun Wang said. “This is the most important thing to do right now, [and] it feels like a call to action.” She was one of about 40 parents who arrived in the parking lot of the Post Office in the morning to join the search.
At 3:30 p.m. in the student parking lot, CERT set up another grid search after school to look for Sullivan.
“He is still a missing person, but we think it is more of a run away than foul play,” officer James Jensen from the Sheriff’s Department said. “It happens all the time. The period is a little longer than normal, of him missing, but kids run away all the time.”
Jensen arrived in Cupertino in the morning and will stay until 8 p.m. tonight, just as the search party did last night.
“They’re just looking throughout the whole city of Cupertino,” Jensen said. “We obviously know he was last seen here [at MVHS].”
About 80 volunteers gathered around two small tables set by CERT in the corner of the student parking lot. CERT had student volunteers under 18 who were not on a school team write down the names and phone numbers to keep track of who was going out and where they were going. Jensen explained that the organizers and students, who weren’t allowed to search, would text or call searchers to check in on them. They did this to keep track of searchers and to inform them where to search.
“I want to go out and look for him, but I can’t,” junior Arielle Obisama said. “We were hoping to go look for him. My parents signed the waiver, but the school notified the [group] that minors could not search.”
Because non-athletes were unable to participate in the search, some were relegated to the position of coordinators, where each student checked in with search groups every 15 minutes. A waiver was not required for a student to volunteer as a coordinator.
“I think we were a little bit anxious to go out on our feet because that way we feel like we’re making a difference and being useful,” junior Emaan Khan said. “But any way we can help we want to help.”
Student athletes are required to submit a medical form before joining a school sport, so the dance, track and field and wrestling teams were permitted to join the search, under the supervision of their respective coaches.
Dance team coach Hilary Barron joined the group with about 10 of her dancers.
“This has been on my mind,” Barron said. “I canceled practice today and then sent [an] email to parents saying that if they want to, they can [join].”
Jensen explains that to his knowledge, the search will continue every day until they find Sullivan.
“I hope we find him right away. We want to return him to his family,” Jensen said. “That’s our goal, and that’s everybody’s goal.”
