Volunteers hoping to assist police in the search for a missing UF student will face closed doors after Friday afternoon.
The Gainesville Police Department announced that after 5 p.m. Friday, the volunteer check-in post at the Florida Farm Bureau, located at 5600 SW 34th St., will be closed.
After that time, police said they will no longer coordinate volunteer teams in the search and recovery effort for Christian Aguilar, the 18-year-old UF freshman who disappeared on Sept. 20.
GPD spokesman Ben Tobias said when the search for Aguilar began, police used teams of volunteers to comb through wooded areas across Gainesville.
Now, the search areas have been narrowed down, Tobias said.
“We are following the leads as they come into (GPD’s Criminal) Investigations Bureau,” he added. “Additionally, there is a mountain of data that our investigators are sifting through.”
As police find new places to search, the department will send professional search and recovery teams to investigate, Tobias said.
“Anything that is found at this point of the investigation will be considered evidence,” he said. “We can’t risk the integrity of that evidence being handled by anyone but law enforcement.”
Contact Chris Alcantara at calcantara@alligator.org.
