The Nova Scotia Police Review Board has dismissed complaints against the Truro Police Service brought forward by the parents of a three-year-old boy who has been missing for more than three years.
Dylan Ehler disappeared from his grandmother’s backyard on May 6, 2020, with police and first responders searching for a week but finding only his rubber boots in the nearby Lepper Brook.
Ehler’s parents, Jason Ehler and Ashley Brown, accused Truro police of not adequately investigating their son’s disappearance, claiming the police failed to “realistically pursue and investigate the prospect of criminality” and also said the police force operated with “tunnel vision,” pursuing the theory that their son drowned at the expense of other possible explanations.
The police board’s decision, released July 17, acknowledges the parents of a small child who went missing would want police to act quickly on every possible lead.
But it says the police need to follow procedures and concludes Truro police acted reasonably in their initial response to the report of a missing child and in their subsequent investigation.
The decision notes the search efforts for Ehler included 18 hours of searching from the air and six days by ground search-and-rescue teams.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 7, 2023.