Vanessa Fontaine, the mother of missing 14-year-old boy Avonte Oquendo from New York City, made an appearance last Thursday night on "Piers Morgan Live," saying she believes her son is being held against his will.
"I feel that someone has him, that they are holding him because there's not a surveillance tape around that shows him at all in a train station, not walking in the street anywhere," she said in the CNN interview.
"My message to my son is that I love him and we're going to find him. You'll come home to your family, And for anyone who has him, please be kind and to let him go. Bring him, you know, to somewhere, I don't care if it's a fast food restaurant, a fire department, police station, just, you know, drop him there," Fontaine added.
"At this point, anything's possible," his brother Danny Oquendo told reporters.
"We've been sending out volunteers to each borough in New York City. He's like any other kid. He just can't communicate. He likes playing, he likes parks, he likes trains. He just can't communicate," he added.
Avonte Oquendo was last seen on surveillance camera leaving the Riverview School in Long Island City, a neigbhborhood in Queens, on October 4, NY1 reported. The NYPD's search effort continues, but Commissioner Ray Kelly said they may make some changes to its approach.
"We're still devoting a lot of resources to the search. We'll have to make adjustments as far as the deployment of the amount of resources that we have. We'll do that some time during the week if we're unsuccessful. Obviously we ask for the public's help with any information at all," Kelly said, as reported by NY1.
"We have our scuba divers in the water everyday. We're doing everything that we reasonably can do. Helicopter surveys, rooftops, that sort of thing, are being done as well," Kelly added.
"It's affecting us more than I can say on camera," Philip Banks, said the NYPD Chief of Department during a visit to the command post for the search, on Center Boulevard, across the street from the school.
A national search group has joined local volunteers in Queens, distribute flyers and going door-to-door, in hopes of tracking down the 14-year-old boy.
A $90,000 reward is being offered for information leading to his return. "He was last seen wearing a gray striped shirt, black jeans and black sneakers," according to NY1.
Public service announcements are being heard on subways throughout the five boroughs, notifying New Yorkers that search efforts to find Oquendo continue unabated.
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