'Code Red' Alert Helps Locate Missing Autistic Girl

All Fremont police units joined residents and firefighters Sunday night to help locate a missing autistic girl. 

According to the Fremont Police Department, officers were dispatched to an apartment complex on Northern Common, a community near Walnut Avenue and the BART station, just before 8 p.m. on a report of a missing 17-year-old girl with autism.

The girl, who had never went missing before, was unable to speak. She was already missing for an hour when her parents called police. She was last seen on her pink mountain bike, which she pushed with her feet as she was unable to pedal.

Fremont police issued a "code red" alert and coordinated an extensive search, with 21 officers and four sergeants joining Fremont Fire crews and local residents in looking for the girl.

A Fremont police sergeant eventually located the missing girl at 9:55 p.m. near Grimmer Boulevard and Carol Avenue, three miles away from her home. 

It was “a very happy ending to what could have been a tragic incident,” the Fremont Police Department said in a statement.