(AP)
He was the 6-year-old boy whose death became a cautionary tale.
The disappearance of Etan Patz changed New York City forever — and wound up helping kids who went missing around country.
“It affected the way parents treat their children. Whenever possible, don’t let them out of your sight,” Ed Koch, mayor at the time of the boy’s disappearance, told The Post.
“It was strange, because children had been kidnapped before, children had been killed before, but nothing gripped the city like this ever, before or since.”
Nearly 100 officers, bloodhounds and helicopters were searching for Etan within 24 hours of his disappearance. Officers used their car loudspeakers to drive around town broadcasting detailed descriptions of the 3-foot-4 youngster.
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Dozens of parents carried out searches on their own in a bid to help police, and went door to door with missing posters.
Within two weeks, police were getting hundreds of tips a day about his whereabouts. At one point, more than 500 officers were assigned to the case, and the disappearance was mentioned at every police roll call at every city precinct.
Koch quoted his police commissioner, Bob McGuire, as saying, “We didn’t spare a dollar, and we had few dollars to spare.”
Etan’s father, Stanley was a photographer, and the posters with his pictures of Etan on them became ubiquitous. Every patrol car had one, and more than 300,000 flyers were distributed around town.
“The picture of Etan was very special. He had these huge, luminous eyes that just drew you in,” Koch said.
Stanley and his wife, Julie, worked tirelessly not only to try find their son, but to find other missing kids.
Their lobbying efforts led to President Ronald Reagan signing the Missing Children Act in 1982, which required the FBI to keep track of such cases.
Etan became the first missing child to have his picture on a milk carton, and today, the day Etan disappeared 33 years ago, is National Missing Children’s Day.