Northern Ohio: More than 1,000 children have been reported missing from Northern Ohio and the Cleveland area just this year alone. Forty-five of them just this month alone from the Cleveland/Akron area and 35 in the month of August.
It is unclear what is causing the disappearances but the trend is disturbing to local police. Parents have taken matters into their own hands to try and locate their missing kids. Breana Brown, who started the organization Join Us in Minors Protection (JUMP) to help bolster support and awareness.
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Authorities don’t seem to know how many of these children are run-aways, gang related or involved in drugs. A fear is that many of these missing kids have been trafficked.
“Officials at the time called it an “extraordinary surge” in disappearances.”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost blamed part of the reporting problem on staffing issues with the Cleveland Police. “He also stated that data for runaway cases, abductions, or sex trafficking is not always entered correctly”.
https://nypost.com/2023/09/26/more-than-1k-kids-reported-missing-in-ohio-in-extraordinary-surge/
“I am fearful of all kinds of things that fall through the cracks that include missing children,” the attorney general added. “I rely on the tenacity of a worried parent more than I do a harried bureaucrat whose job it is to put data into a computer” added the Ohio AG.
The University of Toledo is working with the state to create an improved statewide database. For the time being though the attorney general said reporting deficiencies and even search efforts are affected by what News 4 worded as “under-resourced law enforcement.”
