The chief of the North Port Police Department in Florida said "human error" led a surveillance team to confuse Brian Laundrie with his mom.

The Independent reported that North Port Police Chief Todd Garrison said once they realized the mistake, it was important for the department to acknowledge it publicly. He noted that people want "open, transparency, and honesty" with their law enforcement officials.

Garrison told South County Tiger Bay Club members that they had made a mistake, and it was "human error." However, he said he still stands behind his team.

"As a leader, what do I do? Do I not tell the public what's going on, do we conceal it, cover it up? Yes, we made a mistake it was human error but I still stand behind my team," Garrison noted as reported by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Laundrie's parents reported to law enforcement that their son was missing on September 17. Garrison said when his officers went out to the Laundrie home to take the missing person report, they hoped that they would "find Brian hiding in a back bedroom."

Garrison said he was hoping that it was a ploy, but "it wasn't." He noted that during the first three-and-a-half days of the investigation on Laundrie, which started with a missing person's report filed at Suffolk County in New York, his department was operating in a support role.

By the time they became the lead agency, Garrison said Laundrie had already left the house. According to Garrison, Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie had moved out of their location in June, changed their address, moved to New York, and then left for a cross-country adventure.

"Now, we know that, by the time we became the lead agency, Brian had already left the house and presumably had already been deceased out in the Carlton Reserve," the North Port Police Department chief said. 

Garrison also admitted that when he earlier told the media that he knew where Laundrie was, it was "100 percent" in his belief that what the police team said to him that Laundrie was outside the house was accurate.

In a press conference, a day after the mistaken sighting, Garrison said his officers knew where Laundrie was.

"Later on, we found out that Brian had left the house and now the parents on Friday wanted to report him missing... There was nobody more surprised about that than me," Garrison said. 

In standing by with his team that made the erroneous identification, Garrison noted that "this is not uncommon, and if any expert out there says it is, they're lying to you."

He said the "phenomenal" and amount of work his team and the FBI team had done, "24 hours a day," led the search teams to locate Gabby Petito deceased, which was their "primary focuses the first couple of days." 

"If Brian did go on the run, he would be found. I was confident of that," he added.

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North Port Police in Florida Confused Brian Laundrie as His Mom

The North Port Police investigators had confused Brian Laundrie's mom, Roberta Laundrie, with her son while monitoring the family's home after Gabby Petito was reported missing.

North Port Police spokesperson Josh Taylor earlier told WINK News that the surveillance operation has been flawed. At one point, Taylor noted that investigators believed that Laundrie had left the house in his Ford Mustang but had returned.

This has led them to believe that they knew Laundrie's whereabouts in the weeks following Petito's disappearance. But Taylor admitted that eventually, they realized that the person who left the house was Laundrie's mom.

The North Port police said the officers responsible for watching out for Laundrie claimed they mistakenly got the two mixed up since Petito's fiance looks very much like his mom.

"They're kind of built similarly," said Taylor. According to the police, they had watched Laundrie leave in his Mustang on September 13, and they thought he returned on September 15.

"But we now know that that wasn't true... No case is perfect," Taylor noted.

Family Attorney Says Brian Laundrie and Mom Not 'Built' the Same

The attorney for the family of Brian Laundrie, Steven Bertolino, earlier told ABC7 that "everyone makes mistakes," but "Brian and Roberta are not 'built' the same."

"Moreover, it was (North Port police) that put the ticket on the Mustang at the park (Carlton Reserve), and if they saw Brian leave on Monday in the Mustang... then they should have been watching the Mustang and the park starting on Monday and they would have known it was Chris (Laundrie's dad) and Roberta that retrieved the Mustang from the park," the lawyer noted.

Bertolino then said, "none of this may have made a difference with respect to Brian's life but it certainly would have prevented all of the false accusations leveled by so many against Chris and Roberta with respect to 'hiding' Brian or otherwise financing an 'escape'."

Bertolino further noted that he concurred with Taylor that Laundrie may have already been dead when the police realized they "lost track" of him. 

"However, you can't blame the family because the police did not know enough to follow someone they were obviously surveilling," the lawyer added.

After a month-long manhunt, Laundrie's remains were discovered in a swampy area of the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park on October 20. The initial autopsy of Laundrie's remains did not uncover a cause or manner of his death, so his skeletal remains were sent to a forensic anthropologist for further examination.

The medical examiner earlier said the remains were confirmed to belong to Laundrie based on "comparison to known dental records."

Brian Laundrie was named a person of interest by North Port police after returning home on September 1 or 10 days before Gabby Petito was reported missing by her family.

Petito disappeared on a cross-country road trip with Laundrie. The couple was traveling to Oregon when the YouTuber stopped communicating with her family in Wyoming in late August.

Gabby Petito's body was found at the Spread Creek Dispersed Campground near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming on September 19. 

A Teton County, Wyoming coroner said she was strangled to death by a "human being," and the manner of death was homicide.

READ MORE: Brian Laundrie Manhunt: Parents of Gabby Petito's Fiancé Change the Date of Florida Fugitive's Disappearance

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Mary Webber

WATCH: How North Port Police Confused Brian Laundrie With His Mother - From FOX 13 Tampa Bay