TV anchor Paula Lopez at home
February 28, 2013
The family of Santa Barbara TV anchor Paula Lopez, who went missing Wednesday morning and was later found, are refusing to elaborate on how she went missing.
Lopez, 48, who is married to a Superior Court judge, anchors for KEYT-TV Channel 3. She was reported missing at about 10:30 a.m.
After her family alerted the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office that she was missing, deputies used search dogs and helicopters as they scoured the area.
The rapid response has raised questions about whether the family received favorable treatment. Typically, law enforcement authorities wait 24 hours before declaring a person missing and launching search efforts.
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Party time for Paula. Pay up time for taxpayers.
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This is blatantly false and misleading reporting. Nobody has to wait 24 hours in order to file a missing persons report in California. That is absolutely false. Its a rule that makes for great television but is not based on reality. I would like to know who it was that told Calcoast that little piece of information.
Your stock as a legitimate news outlet is dropping.
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SCG is absolutely correct on the reporting requirements and I can tell you from professional experience that local L.E. and Search & Rescue teams will always respond immediately to “any” report of a missing person where there may be any chance to “search”. The thought CCN was better than this in it’s reporting.
At the same time I’d like to hear (but not require) an explanation from the “missing person”.
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Correct. Check this link if you don’t believe it.
http://oag.ca.gov/missing
Another good link about the incident.
http://z6mag.com/featured/paula-lopez-missing-persons-scare-keyt-anchor-found-safe-1619345.html
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But it is so much more fun to regurgitate whatever you hear/read than to check things out for yourself.
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If there wasn’t an element of conjecture or controversy attached to the story then you probably wouldn’t read about it it here. Speculation is the lingua franca of the regular commenters, and that’s a fact. If they don’t get their regular diet of orchestrated controversy here, they’ll go elsewhere.
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It seems to me that the public is entitled to at least some explaination, rather than just them saying they will refuse to comment. A lot of media attention was given to this and that made it very public, so saying that it was a private, family matter doesn’t fly with me..
A lot of taxpayers money was spent needlessly and the public deserves an explaination in my opinion.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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Especially since we (or the residents of SB) paid for the search… something fishy here. Small, but fishy.
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She is married to Judge Ochoa and a news anchor for KEYT and of course she received special treatment. There is us (the serfs of the world) and them (the privileged, powerful, special them not me’s of the word). She should be required to reimbursethe cost of the investigation/search or make it public. She is no different than any other taxpayer in this society. Shame on her and her family for thinking they are privileged.
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I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure the people involved didn’t invite the media attention. And, just out of curiousity, what explanation (note, there is only one “i” in explanation) would satisfy you?
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I know, I know, knowing how to spell is elitist. Color me guilty.
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It is not elitist. It is demonstrating attention to detail and ability to use spell check.
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Hummmmmmmm……………….
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Anyone else would have had to WAIT the 24 hours to file a missing person report,, sounds like she needed a time out
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Of course there was favorable treatment, this is California after all.
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Waiting 24 hours is wrong and should be changed, period.
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I don’t know about that. Sure, if it’s a truly missing person, then yeah, we’d like to start looking ASAP; however, we need some sort of filter to separate out the “walkabouts” and such.
No law (yet) against having friends, family, co-workers, fellow parishioners, etc. to form their own search…
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The law was changed……. over 20 years ago. Go on line and check out California Penal Code Sections 14205 – 14206. Refusal for L.E. not to take a report is a CRIME.
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