A Silver Alert is active for 71-year-old Rafael Rodriguez Velasquez, who was last seen Sunday near Alton Park Boulevard and West 38th Street in Chattanooga. He is described as 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighing about 155 pounds, with gray hair and brown eyes. Authorities say he has a medical condition that could impair his ability to get home safely.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation issued the Silver Alert for Velasquez, according to WZTV. Anyone with information is asked to call the TBI's 24-hour hotline at 1-800-TBI-FIND (1-800-824-3463), which relays verified tips directly to local investigators, per TN.gov. The Chattanooga Police Department can also be reached directly at 423-698-2525.
Where He Was Last Seen
Velasquez was last spotted near the intersection of Alton Park Boulevard and West 38th Street, in the Alton Park neighborhood of South Chattanooga. The area is a historic residential and industrial section of the city that sits along Chattanooga Creek near Lookout Mountain, according to background compiled by ProPublica. It remains unclear whether Velasquez was traveling on foot or in a vehicle when he was last seen, and investigators have not indicated a direction of travel.
Before a Silver Alert can be broadcast statewide, Tennessee law enforcement guidelines require local departments to first enter a missing vulnerable person report into the National Crime Information Center database. Once that step is complete, officers can request the TBI trigger the wider alert, a process outlined in materials from the Memphis Police Department.
How Tennessee's Silver Alert System Works
Tennessee's Silver Alert law authorizes the TBI to issue statewide alerts for missing residents age 60 or older, or for adults with physical or cognitive disabilities, whenever their disappearance poses imminent danger, under Tennessee Code § 38-6-121. The law was expanded on July 1, 2021, giving the TBI oversight to centralize the process and require distribution across media outlets and social platforms statewide, WBIR reports.
Since that 2021 expansion through early 2026, the TBI has issued 538 Silver Alerts across the state, maintaining an overall safe recovery rate above 90 percent, the outlet's reporting shows. Of those cases, 40 missing individuals were ultimately found deceased, 84 were located outside Tennessee, and 10 remain open, according to the same WBIR data — figures that underscore how far a vulnerable adult can travel in a short time and why early public tips matter so much.
Medical context helps explain why these searches move quickly. Alzheimer's Tennessee statistics cited by WBIR indicate that 60 percent of people with Alzheimer's disease or dementia will wander at least once during their illness, a pattern that drives much of the urgency behind Silver Alert protocols statewide.
Beyond the hotline, families and officers can also use the TBI Find App, a mobile tool that lets them store digital profiles with photos and medical histories for quick submission during a missing person case, according to TN.gov. Local outlets including WTVC have also amplified Velasquez's description on social media in hopes that community sightings can help investigators close in on his location.
This is not the first Chattanooga-area Silver Alert Hoodline has covered. Last November, the TBI and Chattanooga police issued an alert for an 81-year-old man with a medical condition, and in 2024 a similar alert was issued for a missing 80-year-old woman in Hamilton County. No further details about Velasquez's medical condition or a possible direction of travel have been released.
