A 77-year-old Jersey City man with dementia has been missing since Tuesday, and police are asking the public to help bring him home. Ramon Contreras was last seen around 4 p.m. on August 25 near 123 Erie Street in the city's Hamilton Park neighborhood, wearing a red t-shirt, brown pants, blue shoes and a dark blue hat, according to a Jersey City Police Department bulletin.
Contreras is described as a dark-skinned Hispanic male standing about five feet four inches tall and weighing around 150 pounds, as reported by Hudson County View. Surveillance footage captured before he vanished showed him carrying a red bag, according to a police flyer shared on Facebook, offering searchers an additional identifying detail beyond his clothing.
A Familiar Pattern, But a Wide Gap in Distance
This isn't the first time Contreras has wandered off. Police noted he was previously recovered in the city's South District near Armstrong Avenue, an area roughly four to five miles south of where he was last seen this time, per the outlet's reporting on the case. That distance matters: search-and-rescue data compiled by senior care organizations and cited by the City of Wheaton government shows that 94 percent of missing individuals with dementia who wander are eventually found within 1.5 miles of where they disappeared, even though Contreras's history suggests he is capable of covering much greater distances across multiple police districts.
Wandering itself is common among people living with dementia. The Alzheimer's Association has found that roughly six in 10 people with dementia will wander away from home or caregivers at least once. The stakes of a prolonged search are steep — public safety data from New Jersey law enforcement, cited by the North Bergen Police Department, indicates that up to half of wandering seniors with dementia who aren't located within 24 hours suffer serious injury or death.
How Police Are Coordinating the Search
The Jersey City Police Department urged anyone with information to contact its East District, which can be reached at 201-547-5408, or the East District Detective's Office at 201-547-5465. A separate central Missing Person Unit line, 201-547-5424, is also available for tips, according to a family member's post on Facebook.
Cases like this one fall under New Jersey's Silver Alert System, established by state statute to let local police coordinate with the New Jersey State Police Missing Persons Unit and rapidly broadcast public notices when a cognitively impaired person goes missing. The state police unit runs a 24-hour hotline at 1-800-709-7090 and can also be reached by email at [email protected] to support municipal departments investigating cases involving missing vulnerable adults.
New Jersey lawmakers have recently moved to strengthen that alert system further. In December 2025, the state Senate approved Bill S-2802, introduced by State Senators Shirley Turner and Angela McKnight, which would require broadcast outlets participating in Silver Alerts to play an audible tone and warning message similar to Amber Alerts. The Jersey City Police Department, New Jersey's second-largest municipal force with more than 900 uniformed officers spread across four patrol districts, is leading the search for Contreras and continues to ask the public for any information on his whereabouts.
