TWO RIVERS, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Two Rivers Police say the death of 7-year old Jacob Baer was a tragic accident, as authorities offering more details about what happened late Saturday afternoon.
It was just after 4:30 p.m. on Saturday when Jacob Baer’s father called police. His autistic son had gone missing while the two were outside their apartment building, that sits next to some woods and the West Twin River.
“Jacob, from all accounts, liked to play in the woods. He loved nature and being outside, he loved to run so it was not uncommon for him to run around and run away from one of his parents when they called him right away and that type of thing. So, it was difficult for the parent, at that time, to know where he had gone,” said Capt. Andrew Raatz with the Two Rivers Police Department.
Pretty quickly into the investigation, Two Rivers Police knew they needed more help – calling in other local and state agencies to aid in the search.
But once items belonging to Baer were found in the West Twin River, the focus of the investigation turned to the water.
According to Raatz, “Some of the resources, the DNR with some of their locating equipment and obviously watercraft, those are huge in these situations. We had the Army National Guard out with helicopters, Coast Guard. So those are all huge resources that we have in this area that are just amazing to have.”
The incident ending in tragedy when the boy’s body was recovered from the river Sunday morning.
It’s the second child death the department has dealt with this year, the other being Elijah Vue’s.
“This year just happens to be particularly bad when you have two situations that were very tragic all in a short period of time. So, it definitely hits home more and it affects our officers probably more so than your ‘average year.” added Raatz.
Unlike the Vue case, authorities said they knew from the beginning, there was nothing suspicious about the Baer disappearance.
Raatz said, “We had a a lot speculation, especially online, saying this is just like that. It was really nothing like that. The similarities are it happened here and they were both male and that’s kind of where they stopped at that point, two very different situations.”
While police continue to investigate the Jacob Baer case and his autopsy is scheduled for later this week, they do not anticipate referring any charges in this situation.
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