Toronto Police are seeking the public’s help in locating a missing 53 year old who frequents areas near to Cabbagetown. Donald Potan, 53, was last seen on Saturday, May 3, 2014, at 9 a.m., in the Dundas Street East/Parliament Street area. Police are concerned for his safety.
He is described as Aboriginal, 6’1″, 201 lbs., with short black hair, a black trimmed beard, and a black/grey moustache. He was wearing prescription glasses, blue jeans, a black baseball hat and a tan jacket with the lettering “Don” and “Contractor” on the front and “AB Contracting” on the back.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-5104, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), online at www.222tips.com, text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637), or Leave A Tip on Facebook. Download the free Crime Stoppers Mobile App on iTunes, Google Play or Blackberry App World.
4 replies on “Missing Man, Donald Potan, 53”
Is it helpful to have these reports on this website? There have been at least 3 missing person reports lately, but they’re all from outside of Cabbagetown boundaries and all deal with non-Cabbagetown people. This guy is from Dundas & Parliament where people must drift in and out every day.
Hi. Thanks for your comment. We think these postings are helpful, since they’re very locally focused and of a serious nature. We are posting missing persons reports about people either from Cabbagetown, or who live in, or frequent areas near to Cabbagetown since it’s very possible that the people being sought travel through our neighbourhood.
Roughly, I’ve been using Jarvis/Shuter/Broadview/Bloor as the surrounding boundaries to determine whether to post. It’s not feasible to post all of the missing people from the entire city since there are too many, and at a certain point – the alerts wouldn’t be meaningful. In this particular case, Dundas and Parliament is at the edge of South Cabbagetown, and although not exactly in the Don Vale/Cabbagetown Residents Association area which we represent, Dundas St. is less than 300 m. from Gerrard St. which we do cover. The 14 year old girl who was last seen at Broadview Ave. and Bloor St. is another example where although not in our area directly, there’s some chance that she might have been seen by someone from our neighbourhood.
The missing people reports have all been sourced via Toronto Police, so I think that we should treat the reports as legitimate and although there are some people who live a transient lifestyle in some surrounding areas, I don’t think that those people should be treated in a less serious manner than someone who lives directly in our neighbourhood. If the Police alert us that the missing person has been found (they usually do), I remove the posting.
Thanks for the detailed reply, Keith.
I enjoy this website and check it once every few weeks for community news (not mugshots of homeless guys). If I was researching Cabbagetown and stumbled on this website, it would make me think Cabbagetown was skid row or something!
My pleasure! We like to be as transparent as possible. Thanks for visiting often, we know there are some people out there viewing the site but we think that most people visit when they get our monthly email newsletter.
I agree that this kind of content can give people the wrong impression about our particular part of the city but life in a city as big and diverse as ours is sometimes a bit more gritty than we’d like.
I discussed with another member of our board, and we’ve decided to still post, but move the photos to the full page rather than the home page and are just linking to the photo and details for those who are interested now. It might make it a bit less jarring but still give residents the opportunity to keep an eye out at the same time.
Thanks again for the feedback.