An 87-year-old man has not been seen since Sunday morning, and the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office is now asking the public for help finding him. Deputies have not released further details about where in Miami-Dade County he was last seen, but the appeal underscores just how urgent these cases can become once the clock starts ticking.
The case was reported by CBS News Miami, which noted that MDSO is actively seeking the public's assistance in locating the man. It's not the first time this year that Miami-Dade's sheriff's office has had to mobilize for a missing senior. In June, deputies launched a search for 87-year-old Rodrigo Portuondo after he went missing in Southwest Miami-Dade, according to WSVN, which reported that he was found safe within 24 hours.
Why Every Hour Counts
Cases involving missing seniors carry a particular urgency rooted in how dementia and Alzheimer's disease affect behavior. Six in 10 people living with dementia or Alzheimer's will wander away from care at least once, and search-and-rescue data shows missing seniors on foot are typically found within 1.5 miles of where they disappeared, per the Alzheimer's Association, as cited by the BrightFocus Foundation. That narrow radius is precisely why rapid public appeals, rather than delayed investigations, tend to be the strategy of choice for local law enforcement.
Florida's response framework for these situations didn't happen by accident. The state's Silver Alert system was established by Executive Order 08-211 in October 2008 and was later written into Chapter 937 of the Florida Statutes, creating standard protocols for broadcasting notifications when adults 60 and older with cognitive impairments go missing, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Not Every Case Triggers a Highway Sign
One detail that often confuses the public: statewide dynamic message highway signs only activate when a missing senior is confirmed to be traveling in a vehicle with a verified license plate, under FDLE Silver Alert guidelines. Disappearances on foot, like this one appears to be, instead rely on regional law enforcement media broadcasts rather than the electronic freeway signage associated with Amber Alerts. Separately, Florida created the Purple Alert system in 2021 under Florida Statute § 937.0205 to cover missing adults with cognitive or developmental disabilities who don't meet the Silver Alert's age threshold, according to the Florida Senate.
Since the Silver Alert Plan's inception in 2008 through August 2020, the state recorded 2,408 formal alert activations that directly assisted in 297 vehicle-related recoveries, according to the Florida Department of Elder Affairs, in addition to hundreds of local recoveries completed before a statewide alert was even issued. That track record reflects the broader scale of the problem in Florida, where more than 720,000 residents were living with Alzheimer's disease in 2025, supported by over 1 million unpaid family caregivers statewide, per Elder Needs Law.
A County With Outsized Stakes
Other Missing-Person Cases in South Florida Hoodline recently reported on the disappearance of Jose Flexas, 72, from Little Havana.
The agency now leading the search for the missing 87-year-old man is itself in a period of transition. An MDSO Facebook post described the transition from the Miami-Dade Police Department to the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office as imminent. Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz is the county's first elected sheriff in decades. That restructuring hasn't come without friction: in September, Cordero-Stutz appealed the county's approved $1.2 billion fiscal year 2026-2027 budget to Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet, seeking $42 million in additional funding for deputy staffing and operational obligations, according to 93.3 FLZ.
MDSO has not released the missing man's name, description, or last known location beyond the fact that he was last seen Sunday morning, and no additional details have been made public as of this report. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office.
