When two deputies with the Summit County Sheriff’s Office arrived at a Jeremy Ranch convenience store early in the morning on April 9, they saw a young man sitting in the cold. He was shivering, hugging his knees – and trying to stay warm.
The report was from a concerned citizen who said a person was sleeping outside of the business, according to Sheriff Justin Martinez. Deputies recognized the man after responding to several calls a few weeks ago about a transient wandering around Western Summit County and invited him to warm up in their patrol car.
Three hours later, deputies identified the 19-year-old as Connerjack Oswalt – a California man with autism who was reported missing by his family more than two years ago.
Deputies only had brief interactions with Oswalt before that Saturday morning. They were never able to learn much information about him and because he hadn’t broken any laws, deputies never interrogated him. Martinez said deputies recognized the situation as a humanitarian issue and offered resources to Oswalt, but he always refused assistance.
As Oswalt warmed up in the vehicle, deputies established a rapport with the teen and asked if they could run his fingerprints. Oswalt agreed. The results turned up a warrant out of Nevada for Connerjack Oswald. Martinez said the warrant didn’t require extradition so Oswalt wasn’t placed into custody, however, the finding would later reveal a discrepancy with how Oswalt’s last name was spelled.
Deputies asked if he was named on the warrant and Oswalt responded saying that it was him, but the information wasn’t accurate, according to Martinez. Deputies then asked where Oswalt was going and coming from, and he replied that he was on his life’s journey.
“From the vague responses, they felt that there was more than just a warrant to this individual. They felt there was a humanitarian investigation that needed to be pursued further,” Martinez said. “In doing so, they were able to deploy all the training, years of experiences … and then just having compassionate, empathetic deputies – they just felt there was something more that needed to be looked into.”
Sheriff’s Office deputies contacted dispatch for help searching the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children database. Dispatchers began scouring pages of photos for people who resembled Oswalt while deputies continued speaking with the teen. Eventually, they came across a flier for a 16-year-old named Connerjack Oswalt who was reported missing in September 2019 from California.
Law enforcement observed the young man before them resembled the teen in the photo and suspected it was him. Deputies called the phone number listed, which belonged to his parents.
“You have to imagine that the parents wake up every day wondering ‘Is today the day that I’m going to get that dreaded call?’ That’s got to be very hard to live with,” Martinez said. “They get a call from my deputies and, according to the family members, their hearts just sank. They thought this was that call.”
Instead, deputies informed the family they may have found Oswalt, but they couldn’t be sure because of the age difference. They asked if he had any identifying marks and Suzanne Flint, the teen’s mom, described a birthmark on the back of her son’s neck. Soon after, deputies also learned Oswalt has an autism spectrum disorder.
Deputies asked if they could check the teen’s neck and he agreed. Martinez said once deputies saw the birthmark, they told the family they were almost 100% certain it was him. The teen’s grandfather and stepfather then drove from Idaho to the Sheriff’s Office to make a positive, in-person identification.
The sheriff credits deputies’ ability to investigate and look past the misspelling of Oswalt’s name as the reason the reunion was possible. Sheriff’s Office deputies learn crisis intervention techniques, mental health awareness, and, more recently, autism awareness in their training.
“It used to be that the training consisted of identifying what someone with post-traumatic stress disorder looks like,” Martinez said. “Now it’s evolved into how do we deal with that, how do we communicate with them, how do we help them? And that is such an important part of all of this.”
Deputies must now be able to recognize neurodiversity among individuals they’re responding to and then put their training into practice, while also recognizing how everyone can be affected differently. Even though deputies were unaware of Oswalt’s diagnosis until after they contacted his family, Martinez said the training they received was still relevant in the situation.
But he also said there is more to the story he hopes to learn.
Law enforcement is unsure how Oswalt ended up in Summit County or where he was before that. The flier also listed him as missing as opposed to a runaway. Martinez said Oswalt was not disgruntled with his family and deputies are unsure of the circumstances that led him to become “missing.” However, Martinez said, that’s up to California authorities to find out.
“Although I think that we did a lot of things right and we brought closure, there are still lessons to be learned. There are lessons to be learned for law enforcement, there are lessons to be learned with family members that have children with autism … and I’d like the opportunity to sit down with the family and explore those lessons learned,” he said.
Deputies cannot force someone to receive services and can only intervene if an individual has broken the law or is at risk of harming themselves or others, according to Martinez. He praised the deputies for not escalating the situation when responding to previous calls about Oswalt and said that helped build trust between the teen and law enforcement.
“He knew they weren’t going to push the issue, they were there to help,” Martinez said. “The training we receive works if implemented and this is something we can point to and say, yes, it does have an effect.”
If the community were to take something away from Oswalt’s story, Martinez said he hopes that no one judges a book by its cover. Looking at it from a law enforcement perspective, he said people “pigeonhole” officers as lacking compassion.
“That’s not fair. I believe what we’re doing in Summit County is not unique to law enforcement. Cops want to do the right thing, they’re out ther
e to serve the communities and we go out there every day with this type of mentality, to help people,” Martinez said. “On the flip side of that, I would say to the law enforcement partners to never judge a book by its cover, either. If we’d been dismissive of this individual or hadn’t taken the time to dig deeper, then we would have never had this outcome.”