There is concern that there is a cluster or, perhaps, a spike in missing persons cases in the DC area where the missing person is either an African American or Latina teen girl.
The figure is startling — more than a dozen black and Latina teens have been reported missing in D.C. since March 1.
The apparent jump in the number of missing young people in the District has raised concern in neighborhoods and on social media.
Actually, what’s happening is D.C. police are now acknowledging a continuing problem.
https://twitter.com/DCPoliceDept/status/839886925632835584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwtop.com%2Fdc%2F2017%2F03%2Fdc-police-address-concerns-over-missing-teens%2F
As indicated by the social media response, DC authorities are taking the issue seriously.
Chanel Dickerson, who recently became commander of the D.C. police’s Youth and Family Services Division, said she was shocked by the number of missing children in the District. She said many of the cases involved runaways and she has pledged to publicize each case and provide equal service to all.
The 211 people who went missing in January did not reflect an increase in cases, Dickerson said, just better reporting by the families. While that may be true, it is far from reassuring. Few believe that the children are being snatched off the street in mass, but they do think that the children are endangered.
Sharece Crawford, a member of an Advisory Neighborhood Commission in Southeast Washington, said she believed that more black girls were getting involved with gangs and also being forced into prostitution.
“What we need is a citywide alert about the dangers out here and how parents can protect their children,” Crawford said. “Residents are very worried. They are wondering if the city is taking this seriously. They say things like, ‘If white girls were disappearing uptown, there would be a state of emergency.’ ”
The good news is that some of the missing teens are being found.
Amongst the teens missing, it’s been reported that 13-year-old Taylor Innis has been found in “good health.” Missing teen Antwan Jordan has been found safe.
Here’s the picture arrays with the pertinent information from one of the Essence authors/reporters.
It takes 3.2 secs to retweet and help find these 8 BLACK GIRLS reported missing in Washington, D.C. during the past three days (1/2) pic.twitter.com/xpEwNcW44S
— Black Marvel Girl (@BlackMarvelGirl) March 13, 2017
It takes 3.2 secs to retweet and help find these 8 BLACK GIRLS reported missing in Washington, D.C. during the past three days (2/2) pic.twitter.com/kaP15Bk4Kk
— Black Marvel Girl (@BlackMarvelGirl) March 13, 2017
As much as we are paying attention to a lot of important, fast moving things, it is equally important to pay attention to other equally important issues that impact people in different, but still important ways. It is important to remember that there are people at risk not because of anything the Federal, state, or local government may or may not be doing – though they may be at risk for things that should have long been done, but weren’t. Rather, people can be at risk just because of the reality of day to day life. It is important to keep in mind that as we focus on the big issues that we don’t lose sight of equally important things closer to home.
rikyrah
Looking at the map that has been set up, it’s just scary. and, that so many were last seen in the middle of the day.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
I’ve been following this on twitter. Just imagine if they were all white girls from Georgetown or Bethesda.
Mnemosyne
Human trafficking of girls into prostitution is not just something that happens overseas, sadly.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Yep. While simple explanations are always best: runaways, gang related disappearances, the clustering and the victimology makes me wonder if there isn’t a serial offender working the area. What most people don’t realize, and almost no one talks about, is that every large municipality has a number of serial predators – killers, rapists – operating at any one time. Some times the police don’t even realize this as the victimology is such that no one is being reported missing and therefore either dead or sexually assaulted. And that doesn’t even count the travelers. Serial offenders who don’t operate near home, only away from where they actually reside. Once that happens you’re dealing with multiple jurisdictions and it is even harder to connect the dots.
Chyron HR
But why aren’t Democrats offering their plan to help the President and his staff acquire fresh human blood on which to feed?
Adam L Silverman
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: That’s why I did the post. It is one thing for it to show up on twitter and get a lot of play within specific demographics. And that is itself good. It is better if we can give it a push into the view of other demographics.
I used to cover the “white female victim” syndrome when I taught criminal justice. About the disparity in coverage, which often resulted in how cases were handled, investigated, and/or prosecuted.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Adam L Silverman:
My understanding is that local news has been covering it quite well, but there’s been no national exposure like there is when just one white girl goes missing anywhere in the world.
Mnemosyne
@Adam L Silverman:
Ugh. And in the DC area, you’re talking about, what, three jurisdictions minimum between Virginia, DC, and Maryland? Perfect hunting grounds for a predator.
Adam L Silverman
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: That was my understanding from the reporting. We have readers all over the country. And a rabid base of commenters we keep staked out in Cole’s front yard. Between the two we might get a wee boost.
WereBear
@Adam L Silverman: Since places with a lot of runaways, gang related disappearances, and prostitutes have a high rate of people going missing; and predators can hide in the statistical noise.
Mnemosyne
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
White female victims make white viewers think it could happen to them or their daughters. Black or brown female victims give them a comfortable sense that bad things only happen to other people, who probably did something to deserve it anyway.
ETA: I have a mixed-race niece and nephew, so I see those girls and think about my 11-year-old niece.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: More than that. You have the DC police. Then once you leave the district on the VA side you’ve got almost a dozen small municipalities serving as suburbs/bedroom communities for DC. Some of these have their own municipal DC, some are covered by the county sheriff, some have coverage from both. Same type of dynamic on the Maryland side. And then there is Maryland and VA state police. That’s a lot of jurisdictional boundaries one could cross.
Adam L Silverman
@WereBear: Yep.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Reading the coverage, the DC police don’t appear to be calling this a “spike” or a “cluster”, but about average. They just decided to focus the public eye and the social media on this ongoing problem. To which I say “yay”, but let’s not go right away into the fever swamps of human trafficking panic.
This article on WTOP’s website contain this caption on the photo on top of the page:
But then a few lines later contradicts itself with this tweet from the police.
Adam L Silverman
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Hence the “there appears to be” in the title to this post.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: A line or two farther in the same article:
MomSense
Woah.
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
If this is considered about average, it’s even more upsetting.
Mnemosyne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I probably use “human trafficking” more loosely than is the actual legal term. IMO, if gang members lure girls into joining and then force them into prostitution, that’s human trafficking.
Anya
Can the FBI get invoved or they too exhausted from looking for Tom Brady’s stolen Super Bowl jerseys? I just can’t understand our justice system where we put more resources and values on sport uniforms than American girls.
I hope these little girls are found before they experience an irreparable trauma & physical harm.
sigaba
I admit my first thought was, they’re being kidnapped to Connecticut and their brains are being transplanted with white octogenarians after being sold to the highest bidder.
At one point in Get Out the hero asks, “Why black people?” and the answer is basically “because black is cool now.” The film didn’t give the frankly more obvious answer, that young black people disappear all the time and it causes no inconvenient investigations.
Ohio Mom
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: “Sorry to alarm you”? If this really is the norm, and something usually not considered worth noting, that’s even more alarming to me.
Mary
If it were white girls going missing, EVERYONE would assume they were “being snatched off the street in mass.”
I hate the world.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
Ditto. Frankly, any number of young teenage girls that go missing from a specific area IS A PROBLEM. We can’t just shrug it off and say, Well, they’re just black and brown girls from a bad neighborhood, what’cha gonna do?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Adam L Silverman: OK. And I’m glad people are concerned about this problem. And all the bitter comments about how a single missing white girl would get wall-to-wall national coverage on CNN are correct and to the point.
Judging by what the police are saying, I see no reason why the issue should be confined to DC. So again I say “yay” to the DC police for creating this alarm and now let’s see if we have that same problem on a national scale. My guess is yes.
And also yay for them figuring out how to use social media to help bring the teenagers home. Again, perhaps that could be turned into an effective national campaign.
I’m reminded of the “desaparecidas” (vanished girls) in Ciudad Juarez some years back. There, the numbers were in the hundreds and involved actual human trafficking, rape and murder. And to the best of my knowledge, less than 10% of the population of the US even knows that happened, or would care if they did know.
Adam L Silverman
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Tracking and no arguments here. And if it makes you feel better, I knew about what was happening in Ciudad Juarez.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@MomSense: @Ohio Mom: Well, yeah. It seems to have gotten national attention because people think it’s a spike and it’s the latest shiny object in the news.
When people figure out it’s an ongoing, chronic issue, that as the DC Police say there are always about a dozen teens missing at any given time, will we go on to the next shiny thing and forget all about them?
quakerinabasement
Teen Vogue again? Those folks have been stellar this year.
Mnemosyne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Uh, there were several acclaimed documentaries made about that, plus a fiction film that starred Jennifer Lopez. It was a huge media deal when it came to light 10 years ago.
ETA: Though I do find it fascinating to see you rapidly moving the goalposts from this is no big deal to well, you didn’t care before, why care now?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Mnemosyne: this is no big deal
Never said that, thought that, or implied that. Never said anything but “this is a chronic issue, not a spike”. Saying it’s been going on for years doesn’t turn it into “no big deal”.
But glad to hear about the films, which I admit did escape my notice. Because at the peak of it I was relying on a few Spanish-language websites to track it, since there seemed to be a dearth of english-language sources that I could find.
ruemara
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I knew. I read multiple articles about it. There’s a large amount of work on it. Besides, discussing these disappearances doesn’t negate the discussion of those disappearances.
It’s not a competition.
Mnemosyne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
You must have stopped paying attention right around 2006, then, because that’s when it blew up big in the English-language media, including stories in the New York Times and Newsweek.
But, please, continue to condescendingly tell us all that we’re just not as attuned to these stories as you are. It always goes over well when a dude lectures a group of women about how he’s way more attuned to women’s issues than they are.
HeidiMom
@Adam L Silverman: John Sandford noted that fact about serial predators in one of his Lucas Davenport novels. (You’re a fellow fan, as I recall.) Since he was a Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter before he was a novelist, I thought it likely that he knew what he was talking about. Can’t say I’m glad to see it confirmed, but I’m not surprised.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne:
Like these fine gentlemen:
laura
@Adam L Silverman: That’s a variation of the Nick Kristof syndrome.
If these children passed the paper bag test, I’m sure Charlie Rose would be all over it.
While we speculate on what may be going on, I’d be focused on serial predator if only for the number of disappearances in such a short amount of time, the proximity of the disapearances and the time of day when last seen.
Adam L Silverman
@HeidiMom: Yes, I do remember reading that there. It is a known fact among law enforcement and criminologists and crime reporters.
Mnemosyne
I need to head down to get registered for my conference, but one last thing:
Usually, the only time there’s any media coverage about black and brown girls missing is right after there’s been a big Missing White Girl story, and there’s a little bit of space opened up to talk about the ongoing problem of these other, non-white girls and women missing as well. I’m happy to see that the space seems to be opened up now where some publicity can be brought to the problem without there needing to be a Missing White Girl story to prime the pump first.
Miss Bianca
My niece, who lives in the DC area, has been keeping me updated on this issue, otherwise I would have known jackshit about it. She was asking, “why isn’t this all over the national media?” and I almost wrote back to say, “you have to ask…?” but couldn’t bear to, because a). sometimes even I get nauseated by my own cynicism, and b). as a POC herself, the last thing she needs is honky auntie schooling her on how racism affects media coverage.
laura
@Adam L Silverman: There was a spate of kidnappings in Sonoma County California in the early to mid 70’s including a classmate of mine in Junior High. Their nude, partially decomposed bodies would be discovered in the hills in and around Santa Rosa. No one was ever arrested or charged. The Zodiac Killer was thought to be a possible suspect.
In the Central Valley, a pair of meth addicts went on a tear and one victim was eventually found down a well when one testified against the other.
Jaycee Lee Duggar was a rare instance of surviving a daylight kidnapping, but other Bay Area children including Kevin Collins and Irene Mischelof have never been located.
My childhood neighbor and playmate Wayne Ford grew from a terribly and obviously disturbed child to become an adult serial killer who’s territory as a long haul trucker up and down I-5 was littered with his victims, or parts thereof.
It is not as uncommon as one would ever think or hope.
Children are easy targets.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: good luck! let us know what transpires!
eclare
@Mnemosyne: What is wrong? He/she is agreeing with you.
Mnemosyne
@eclare:
Start reading at #14. He starts off by saying this isn’t really a spike, and then accuses us of not really caring because he was reading Spanish-language media about the missing women of Ciudad Juarez before it was cool.
Again: lecturing a group of women here about being more in tune with women’s issues than they are is not a good idea.
eclare
@Mnemosyne: Don’t see it. Calm down. And I am female.