Fresno police seek help finding missing 22-year-old man downtown

Fresno police are asking residents to help find Ashton Sklar Ortiz, 22, who was last seen at about 8 a.m. Friday near Santa Clara and F streets in central Fresno. Anyone with sightings, surveillance video or other information that could help place him after that time should contact the Fresno Police Department at 559-621-7000.

Ortiz was described as 6 feet tall and about 275 pounds, with collar-length straight brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a black shirt, red shorts and black shoes, and he was not wearing his prescription glasses. Those details are the clearest public markers in the case, which police have not tied to a publicly described cause or circumstance.

The location places the disappearance in the heart of downtown Fresno, an area with offices, transit activity and steady foot traffic. That makes the search especially dependent on the public noticing small details, from someone walking through the area around Santa Clara Street and F Street to a car camera or business security system that may have captured a time stamp or direction of travel.

Police have not released further details about where Ortiz may have gone after he was last seen or whether investigators have identified any witnesses. For now, the public alert relies on the simplest form of help: remembering who was in the area Friday morning and passing along anything that could narrow the timeline.

Fresno County Sheriff’s Office guidance says missing-person reports should be filed with the law-enforcement agency in the jurisdiction where the person was last seen. In Fresno, that means the Fresno Police Department. The California Attorney General’s Office says missing-person statistics are compiled from law-enforcement entries and cancellations in the state Department of Justice Missing Persons System, and the California Highway Patrol describes the state alerts program as a partnership among law enforcement, the community, traditional media and social media to help recover missing people quickly and safely.

Nationally, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System says it publishes monthly statistics and currently lists 26,641 open missing-person cases. Ortiz’s case now joins that larger public-safety crisis, but the immediate need is local: anyone who saw him downtown Friday morning can help fill in the gap between Santa Clara and F streets and whatever came next.