Phoenix police are asking for the public's help finding Martin Lopez, a 74-year-old man who was last seen Thursday morning near 25th Avenue and McLellan Boulevard, just south of Glendale Avenue. Lopez has a medical condition that may cause him to become lost or easily confused, and officers activated a statewide SAFE Alert to speed up the search.
According to police, Lopez was last seen around 8 a.m. wearing a white and gray striped polo shirt and gray shorts, as reported by KTAR News 92.3 FM. He is described as 5 feet 3 inches tall, 180 pounds, with brown eyes and gray hair. Authorities are urging anyone with information to contact the Phoenix Police Department at 602-262-6151 or call 911.
What a SAFE Alert Means in Arizona
The SAFE Alert issued for Lopez falls under a system that replaced Arizona's old Silver Alert framework, per the outlet's reporting. Arizona's Silver Alert program had maintained a 98% historical success rate in safely locating missing people, with most disoriented adults recovered within 18 hours of activation, according to Axios Phoenix.
The Arizona Department of Public Safety officially launched the SAFE Alert, or Seek and Find Emergency Alert, program on September 26, 2025, to accelerate public broadcasts for vulnerable missing people. Under Arizona Revised Statutes § 41-1728, the state now prohibits law enforcement agencies from delaying or denying a SAFE Alert once statutory criteria are met, and it requires biannual training on notification procedures for police personnel handling missing person cases, according to the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
That law spells out five conditions that must be satisfied before an alert goes out: the missing person must be 65 or older or have a diagnosed cognitive or developmental disability, local search resources must be exhausted, the disappearance must be unexplained or suspicious, the person must be in peril, and public dissemination must be capable of aiding recovery. SAFE Alerts are used specifically to spread the word about missing people who are 65 and older, as well as those with dementia or developmental or cognitive disabilities, in cases like Lopez's.
Reaching Drivers Across the Valley
Once activated, SAFE Alerts are broadcast across 193 electronic Arizona Department of Transportation highway message boards statewide, including 108 electronic signs positioned throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area, giving drivers near 25th Avenue and other Valley corridors a chance to spot Lopez. The reach of that network reflects why state officials built mandatory activation into law rather than leaving it to agency discretion.
A Growing Public Health Backdrop
Arizona is currently experiencing the fastest-growing rate of dementia diagnoses in the nation, with an estimated 151,500 Arizonans aged 65 and older living with Alzheimer's disease in 2025 and a 33% increase in dementia diagnoses statewide between 2020 and 2025, according to Arizona PBS. Alzheimer's disease is the fifth leading cause of chronic disease-related death in Arizona, claiming 2,655 lives among residents 65 and older in 2023, per the Arizona Department of Health Services 2025 State Plan.
Those figures help explain why Phoenix police treat cases like Lopez's disappearance as urgent life-safety emergencies rather than routine welfare checks. In July 2025, Governor Katie Hobbs launched a complementary Turquoise Alert system, known as Emily's Law, to cover missing endangered individuals under 65 who don't meet SAFE Alert criteria, further expanding the state's missing-person emergency network.
The City of Phoenix also operates a voluntary Smart Notifications for 1st Responders registry, which lets residents and family caregivers pre-submit information about a relative's cognitive condition, communication needs, or tendency to wander so officers have immediate context if an emergency arises. Phoenix police have issued similar SAFE Alerts in recent weeks, including one for a missing 13-year-old near 19th Avenue, and another for a 79-year-old man who vanished after a bus ride from a Los Altos market, underscoring how frequently the new alert system is being put to use across the Valley.
