Massive amounts of information were challenging to manage during the search for Calgary boy Parker Wells, according to an internal review by the Calgary Police Service (CPS).

Details of the CPS review, released Tuesday morning, showed that during the two-week search for the missing 11-year-old this past summer, there was an unprecedented amount of information to collect and sift through for the law enforcement agency.

Despite the desperate citywide search for Wells, his body was eventually found in Calgary’s stormwater system.

The CPS review follows a review of Calgary’s 911 system that showed a delay in how the call was handled that resulted in valuable time lost in the initial hours of the search.

“Like so many Calgarians, our members were deeply affected by Parker’s disappearance and remained committed to finding him and supporting his family,” said Calgary police Chief Katie McLellan in a prepared media statement.

“The review recognizes the efforts of our members, partners and the community throughout this response. It also challenges us to learn from the experience and identify ways we can strengthen future responses to major missing- person investigations and other prolonged critical incidents.”

Chief McClellan will address media later this morning.

The CPS said they received more than 1,000 formal investigative tips, more than 90,000 direct social media messages, thousands of emails and roughly 10 terabytes of CCTV footage.

“The review found that while this information provided significant investigative value, existing systems were not designed to easily manage information at that scale during a prolonged critical incident,” read the report.

Chief McClellan said that the review found many successes because the people involved adapted and were committed to the search under extraordinary pressure.

“At the same time, we identified opportunities to build stronger systems around our people so future responses don’t depend as heavily on extraordinary individual effort,” she said.

“The goal is to improve how we support members, manage information and coordinate resources during large-scale incidents.”

Their internal review found that additional capacity and organizational systems would have helped CPS receive, assess, assign and track the information that it received.

Recommendations for consideration

Among the recommendations, the CPS said that it should have a more formal and scalable approach to investigative staffing, relief planning, knowledge transfer and operational continuity during prolonged incidents.

It also suggested clarity around how the CPS Real-Time Operations Centre, major events and emergencies management and incident management work together.

Given the importance of communication, it recommended that CPS Strategic Communications be embedded with major incident command structures and that communications capacity is part of large-scale public engagement.

Along with that, the creation of a centralized tip-management system is needed, along with stronger information-sharing standards to improve coordination and improve duplication in future incidents.

There were also recommendations around investments in technological readiness – to handle the overwhelming amount of information – and, for clearer employee wellness processes to ensure members are supported.

The family of Parker Wells issued a statement as a part of the review process.

“Our family would like to express our sincere thanks to everyone who helped search for Parker.

We are profoundly grateful to the first responders, search-and-rescue teams, volunteers, partner organizations, community members, and the countless individuals who gave their time, energy, and support in the hope of bringing Parker home.

The overwhelming kindness and dedication shown by so many during the most heartbreaking time of our lives is something we will never forget.

We also want to thank the organizations that have closely reviewed what happened and assessed the response. We appreciate the thoroughness of the evaluation and the care taken to walk us through its findings.

While nothing can change what our family has endured, we are grateful for the commitment to learning from this tragedy and identifying ways to strengthen future responses for other families.

As we continue to grieve the loss of Parker, we respectfully ask for privacy and understanding. We are navigating an unimaginable loss, and we appreciate our space being respected as we work toward healing.

We remain deeply thankful for the compassion, support, and care shown to our family and to Parker throughout this journey.”