Reno, Nevada: Reno, Nevada: Sixteen-year-old Reno resident Karamjit Kaur has been reported missing, the Reno Police Department says.
Kaur is described as East Indian, 5’7, 140 pounds with long black hair, brown eyes, a left canine tooth is that is longer than her other teeth and a scar on forehead.
RPD says Kaur was last seen at riding her red and silver mountain bike from her residence located on Anchor Point Drive in Reno Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.
She was last seen wearing a black v-neck short sleeve tee shirt, bright blue cotton pajama bottoms, and black flip flops. She did not take any possessions with her when she left.
2:30 p.m. update: The father of missing Karamjit Kaur implores whoever has taken his daughter to return her safely to her Reno home.
“Whoever took her, bring her back safely. Drop her off. We just want her back,” said Surinder Mathon, 50.
“She is very nice. She is a smart girl.”
Family members and friends are gathered at the gir’s Anchor Point Drive residence, where Kaur lived for the last eight months. They were waiting for news.
“We just hope she’s coming back. It’s the only hope we can have,” said Harry Thandi, a close family friend. “We’re hoping for the best.”
1:45 p.m. update: Searchers called Reno police detectives to the Stead industrial area after discovering a t-shirt, blankets and beer bottles near and beneath a bridge at the end of Echo Avenue.
Reno Police Detective Allan Fox said it appeared the area was used for partying by youths and the discovery was unrelated to the case of Karamjit Kaur.
“We’d rather overkill than miss something,” Fox said.
As a precaution, Fox planned to have a cadaver dog inspect a nearby area where some recent digging has occurred.
1 p.m. update: Searchers are combing the industrial areas of Stead in the on-going search for a missing Reno girl.
Karamjit Kaur was last seen Wednesday riding her bicycle,
By foot, on all-terrain vehicles and their four-wheel-drive vehicles, they are inspecting brushy fields, parking lots, and landscaped areas near industrial buildings in the area of Moya and Lear boulevards.
“We’re trying to be as meticulous as we can,” said Randy Post, a volunteer with the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office Hasty team. “If the brush gets thicker, we try to walk closer together so the chance of detection remains the same.”
Searchers also inspected dumpsters and looked around parked big-rig trailers and storage areas and under bridges.
Among places searched are anywhere persons might seek shelter during a cold night, Post said.
11:15 a.m. update: There’s been several tips from the public and also from interviews for detectives to follow in their search for a missing 16-year-old Stead-area girl, Reno Police Department Lt. Mike Whan said this morning.
Karamjit Kaur was last seen Wednesday riding her bicycle and police have been looking for her.
“Actually, it’s been very successful overnight, since the last press release,” Whan said. “We’ve got a whole bunch of Secret Witnesses (anonymous tips) now.”
The tips have been about girls who look like Kaur and also about suspicious people in the North Valleys area, Whan said. They are following up on Secret Witness reports.
They’s also received possible leads from interviews.
“We can’t go into details on those yet, though,” Whan said.
A command post has been set up at the Shell Station on Red Road Rock and officers are still going to vacant and foreclosed homes looking for signs of people. If the house is unlocked or shows signs of forced entry, police will go inside, Whan said.
A cold front is expected to move through the area tonight, but Whan said that does not concern him.
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8:30 a.m. update: The Reno Police Department reports nothing new this morning in the search for Karamjit Kaur. a 16-year-old Stead-area girl missing since Wednesday.
Police are sending more people out today to knock on doors and ask people if they’ve seen Kaur or have any other information that might help them find her.
North Valleys High School students sounded a somber note at their homecoming football game celebration Friday, handing out fliers and putting a sign of one of the halftime floats that said “Help Us Find Our Classmate, Karamjit Kaur.”
A North Valleys sophomore who has been missing since 6:30 p.m. Wednesday when she went to ride her bicycle in front of her home near Stead, Karamjit is believed to be a victim of foul play, Reno police said Friday. Police plan to continue searching the North Valleys area today for Karamjit.
The 16-year-old had moved to this country eight months ago, police said.
Even though she was an English language learner at the school, her grades were outstanding, said Principal Cinda Gifford.
“She has a tremendous work ethic, and she’s very well respected by her teachers and her classmates,” Gifford said.
Emily Bassett, treasurer for the sophomore class, helped paint the homecoming signs and print the fliers urging people to help find the missing teenager.
“It makes me angry, especially that someone did this to someone new to this country,” said Bassett, who has a history class with Karamjit. “And I live in the same area as her, so it’s kind of frightening to think it could happen to me or someone else here.”
Reno police Lt. Mike Whan said Kaur, pronounced “core,” had told her family she felt hot and left about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday to ride the family’s red-and-silver mountain bike in front of their house on Anchor Point Drive.
When she failed to return within a half hour, the family became worried, contacted other relatives and they began knocking on doors in the neighborhood and searching for her, Whan said.
“She had been wearing her pajamas, and being out there in the cold is what really worried the family,” he said. “She had just been learning to ride the bike for the past month, so she normally only rode it in front of the house.”
One of the girl’s uncles who speaks English called the police to report her missing. The uncle, Joginder Singh, said after the family searched for Karamjit, they called the hospitals and then the police.
“They are not taking it serious and think she will come back tomorrow,” Singh said. “She just barely started school here and so no friends, no phone or any access, so we know for sure someone kidnapped her. They keep thinking she run away and she come back, but I told them, this won’t happen. She has no friends, no boyfriends, no fights or any kind of argument. (Thursday) they started getting serious.”
Whan said that is not the case. He said 99.9 percent of teens who are reported missing return, but officers realized that Karamjit’s situation was different as soon as they arrived Wednesday night.
“We took it seriously from the very beginning, so that is a misperception on their part,” he said.
The family’s missing person report came in at 7:24 p.m. Wednesday, but since it was not a shooting or murder, it was put on a screen as a priority 3, Whan said. An officer called the family about 8 p.m. No one answered so he left a message. At 8:30 p.m., the family called back, and a report was completed and handed to the desk sergeant.
“The desk sergeant sent officers to look for (Karamjit), and as soon as they saw the circumstances, we sent a whole team up there to talk to the family and do a search from 9 p.m. until 5 or 6 in the morning,” Whan said.
On Thursday morning, the search included Raven helicopters and police dogs, he said. They also checked on every registered sex offender in the area.
No Amber Alert was issued because law enforcement needs a vehicle and/or license plate number to help citizens and officers be on the lookout in those instances, Whan said
Police started asking for the public’s help through the media about 4:30 p.m. Thursday. Later that evening, police stopped cars in the area of Karamjit’s neighborhood, asking residents if they had seen the girl.
Amolak Powar, president of the Sikh Temple of Reno where Singh is a committee member, said Friday that Karamjit’s uncle and family are very thankful for the Reno Police Department’s help.
Police found her bicycle at 3 p.m. Thursday about a quarter mile from her home. It had been left at a skateboard park near Silver Lake Elementary School between Red Rock Road and Stead Boulevard northwest of Reno.
Whan said the bike was about 200 to 300 yards from the school. There was no evidence it had been struck by a car and dumped there, and there was no evidence a struggle.
The fact that the bicycle was found about a quarter mile from Karmajit’s house is another concern for police because the family said she has never ridden that far from home before, Whan said.
If she was abducted closer to her home, someone else might have found the bike and ridden it down to the skateboard park, which would result in police searching the wrong area, he said.
“The bike could have been put there by a kid who found it at another location and saw it lying on the side of the road, jumped on it and rode it to the skateboard park,” Whan said. “If that’s the case, it changes everything for us. If we knew where the bike had been left when (Karamjit) left it, we would be concentrating our search in that area instead.”
Whan said if someone did find the bicycle and rode it to the skate park, they need to contact the police department and there will be no repercussions.
“I don’t care who they are, and I would say they just borrowed the bike,” he said. “We just need to know the last place she really was riding the bike in or if it was ridden to the skate park by another person.”
Karamjit’s uncle said her family is suffering and has been praying for her return.
“They are very sad. They are depressed and scared,” Singh said of his niece, who has one brother and three sisters.
“Her mother cries every day,” he said. “This is the second day, and everybody worries. The more time, the more fear we have.”
Source: Lenita Powers • lpowers@rgj.com RGJ.COM
