An 80-year-old man with Alzheimer's disease vanished Monday morning from outside his elder care home in Panorama City, triggering a statewide Silver Alert as investigators scramble to bring him home safely. Paul Shin was last seen around 10:30 a.m. near Kester Avenue and Nordhoff Street, not far from the 14800 block of Calahan Street where he lives, wearing a beige jacket, black shirt, pants and slippers, and carrying a green blanket.
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, Shin suffers from Alzheimer's disease and other medical conditions, details that underscore why officers are treating his disappearance with urgency. The California Highway Patrol activated the Silver Alert on behalf of LAPD, and as MyNewsLA.com reports, Shin is described as 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighing 175 pounds, with gray hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is urged to call 911.
Mission Division Leads the Ground Search
LAPD's Mission Division is leading the local search investigation and has asked the public to call its station line at 818-838-9800, the department's 24-hour hotline at 877-527-3247, or L.A. Regional Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477 with any leads, per the LAPD release. Panorama City falls under the jurisdiction of LAPD's Mission Community Police Station in Mission Hills, which serves more than 225,000 residents across 25.1 square miles of the northeast San Fernando Valley, the department's station page notes.
Once a Silver Alert is initiated, investigating officers must enter the missing individual into the National Crime Information Center database within two hours and coordinate hourly public radio notifications through LAPD Communications, according to the department's standard protocols cited in Hoodline's earlier coverage of a similar case involving 95-year-old Octavio Gonzalez, who also went missing on foot in Panorama City.
How California's Silver Alert System Works
California's Silver Alert program was created through Senate Bill 1047 in 2012 and is codified under California Government Code Section 8594.10, which permits police agencies to request emergency public broadcasts when a missing person aged 65 or older, or someone with cognitive impairments, is determined to be in danger, according to the California Highway Patrol. Statewide alerts are managed through the CHP's Emergency Notification and Tactical Alert Center in Sacramento, a 24-hour facility that verifies criteria with local investigating police departments before broadcasting notifications, the agency says.
The Silver Alert system exists because the stakes in these cases are genuinely severe. Data from the Alzheimer's Association shows that roughly 60 percent of people living with dementia will wander away from caregivers at least once, and separate medical research indicates that up to 50 percent of cognitively impaired adults missing on foot for more than 24 hours suffer serious injury or death.
A Free County Program Built for Cases Like This
Los Angeles County operates L.A. Found, a free initiative run by the county's Aging & Disabilities Department that supplies Project Lifesaver radio-frequency bracelets and GPS smartwatches to residents with Alzheimer's or dementia who are prone to wandering. Between its 2018 launch and late 2025, the program distributed more than 1,800 tracking devices and helped law enforcement safely locate 29 missing individuals with cognitive impairments, the department reports. Whether Shin was wearing any tracking device when he left his care home has not been addressed in available accounts.
The frequency of these cases is tied partly to demographics. Los Angeles County's population aged 65 and older stood at 1.44 million in 2020 and is projected to climb to 2.32 million by 2040, a trend that is expected to drive more regional Silver Alerts in the years ahead. Earlier cases have involved Ramiro Herrera in Pacoima and Octavio Gonzalez in Panorama City. Anyone who sees Paul Shin is asked to contact authorities immediately.
