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VIENNA -- A teenager has been missing from the township for days, and township law enforcement is escalating its search by issuing an alert to local agencies after spending much of the previous day searching.
According to the Ohio Attorney General's Office on Wednesday, the Vienna Township Police Department issued an Endangered Missing Child alert for Landyn Zagorski, 17, who was last seen Sunday.
Such an alert is issued by law enforcement when a child under 18 goes missing under nonwitnessed, unconfirmed or unknown circumstances that do not strictly meet AMBER Alert criteria, but where the child's life is still considered to be at grave risk, according to the state's AMBER Alert website.
The alert's description states that Zagorski was last seen walking west away from his Ridge Road residence, adding that he is autistic and takes medicine. The report notes that Zagorski was wearing a white hoodie with a red, white and blue design on it, and grey shorts.
Vienna fire Chief Gus Birch said the department received a call Tuesday to assist in looking for Zagorski, who was spotted walking into a wooded area, and they called mutual aid companies to assist in looking for the boy.
"We had a total of 17 or 18 side-by-sides, and we basically started from King Graves Road, came south on Ridge Road, spacing the ATVs all the way to Warren Sharon Road," Birch said. "We searched all the way west to state Route 11 -- that was the area he was last seen going towards."
Birch said the Trumbull County Emergency Management Agency also assisted by using its command post and two drones to check the area.
"It's very dense back there; in a lot of the areas, it's very hard to get through," Birch said. "We were out there for probably six to eight hours," said Birch, adding that the Ohio Branch K9 Search Team, a Warren-based K-9 search-and-rescue organization, also had dogs assisting.
Birch said officials in the command post all concluded that they had exhausted their avenues to find Zagorski.
"We did get a couple of calls during that search period that he was seen up near Arrow Park Drive," Birch said. "And then we got another call that he was possibly spotted by Avalon Creek, so we were getting sporadic calls."
Birch said officials agreed to reconvene Wednesday, adding that the matter is now a police matter and that he met with both Vienna police Chief Dan Adkins and Sgt. Brian Darbey Wednesday morning.
"(The) Trumbull County Sheriff is now involved; they brought out their drones this morning, (and) we assisted them a couple of different times today with our thermal imaging camera," Birch said.
As for the police department's Wednesday efforts, Adkins said the department, with the sheriff's department's assistance, went back over Tuesday's locations.
"Basically, we just are taking people's information that call in about it, and we go check the areas," Adkins said.
Adkins said officers have spoken with Zagorski's parents at length, adding that they haven't heard from him, but he really has no friends or places where he likes to go.
"They previously lived in Warren -- they moved to Vienna about six months ago, so we notified the Warren Police Department, and the Attorney General's Office now has him listed as a missing endangered child," Adkins said. "So anybody, law enforcement-wise, that comes across him who isn't familiar with him, he's going to be in the computer."
Adkins said the department has had people call, offering to help with a search party and to bring their horses and ATVs, but officials lack a search area at this point.
"We've had so many sightings that are so far apart that we don't have a distinct search area to say, 'Yeah, let's flood this area with 50 people, because he was there' -- we don't have that," Adkins said. "If you see him, don't approach him -- call us, call the police. Keep an eye on him, and let the police approach him."