A local police chief claimed that in his 33 years on the job, he had never seen anything like the almost 30 missing kid reports that came in during a two-week period at the beginning of May in the Cleveland region.
According to Fox News Digital, Newburgh Heights Police Chief John Majoy, who is also the board president of the volunteer group Cleveland Missing, said that the number of missing children and teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 has stayed at historic levels during the whole month.
"There's always peaks and valleys with missing persons, but this year it seems like an extraordinary year," said Majoy, who heads up a police department in a suburb outside of Cleveland.
"In 2023, for some reason, we've seen a lot more than we normally see, which is troubling in part because we don't know what's going on with some of these kids," he said.
Between May 2 and May 16, the Cleveland Police Department received reports of disappearance from 27 children and teenagers. Majoy speculates that abductions are less common than runaways, but notes that young adolescents are especially vulnerable to predators who may be "wolves in sheep's clothing." Nobody seems to care about their disappearances until there's an Amber Alert, and nobody is talking about them online.
It's a crime that goes unnoticed right beneath our noses, he remarked. The question now is, "Where are they?" What happens to them? They may be involved with drug dealing, prostitution farms, or gangs.
This is a contributing factor to the escalating crime rate in the Cleveland area. Majoy claimed that youngsters in need of protection turn to gangs, where they commit initiation crimes like carjackings and robberies, sell their bodies for money, or become drug addicts. The absence of images only serves to heighten concerns over this matter. Cleveland's missing persons website has more empty squares labelled "Photo not available" than it has actual photos of the missing people.
Majoy claims this causes several problems for the police. There's no hope until we can find someone who knows that individual. The public, he added, is law enforcement's "greatest asset" in missing people cases, so if the family has images, the police may utilize social media and broadcast messages to the public to amass tips and potential leads.
Cleveland Missing is a special non-profit organization serving the greater Cleveland area that helps missing individuals' families find closure, conduct effective searches, and deal with the trauma of losing a loved one.
Sylvia Colon and her cousin Gina DeJesus, who was 14 when kidnapper Ariel Castro took her hostage in 2004, started the organization. Colon told Fox News Digital, "Every family's experience is different, but there are some things that are the same for everybody." "Initially, there is skepticism, and then finger-pointing. Concerns like, "Where did we go wrong?" Have we overlooked something? "Oh, no, how are we going to track down this individual?" The uncertainty of our next steps.
"As time passes and the case remains unsolved for a year, two, or three, life occurs, too. You feel guilty because you can't stop living your life while you keep looking.
Call (216) 623-7697 or send an email to helpfindthemissing@city.cleveland.oh.us if you have any information on a missing individual in or around Cleveland. You may call Cleveland Missing at 216-232-6470 or visit them at 2937 West 25th St.
According to Fox News Digital, Newburgh Heights Police Chief John Majoy, who is also the board president of the volunteer group Cleveland Missing, said that the number of missing children and teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 has stayed at historic levels during the whole month.
"There's always peaks and valleys with missing persons, but this year it seems like an extraordinary year," said Majoy, who heads up a police department in a suburb outside of Cleveland.
"In 2023, for some reason, we've seen a lot more than we normally see, which is troubling in part because we don't know what's going on with some of these kids," he said.
Between May 2 and May 16, the Cleveland Police Department received reports of disappearance from 27 children and teenagers. Majoy speculates that abductions are less common than runaways, but notes that young adolescents are especially vulnerable to predators who may be "wolves in sheep's clothing." Nobody seems to care about their disappearances until there's an Amber Alert, and nobody is talking about them online.
It's a crime that goes unnoticed right beneath our noses, he remarked. The question now is, "Where are they?" What happens to them? They may be involved with drug dealing, prostitution farms, or gangs.
This is a contributing factor to the escalating crime rate in the Cleveland area. Majoy claimed that youngsters in need of protection turn to gangs, where they commit initiation crimes like carjackings and robberies, sell their bodies for money, or become drug addicts. The absence of images only serves to heighten concerns over this matter. Cleveland's missing persons website has more empty squares labelled "Photo not available" than it has actual photos of the missing people.
Majoy claims this causes several problems for the police. There's no hope until we can find someone who knows that individual. The public, he added, is law enforcement's "greatest asset" in missing people cases, so if the family has images, the police may utilize social media and broadcast messages to the public to amass tips and potential leads.
Cleveland Missing is a special non-profit organization serving the greater Cleveland area that helps missing individuals' families find closure, conduct effective searches, and deal with the trauma of losing a loved one.
Sylvia Colon and her cousin Gina DeJesus, who was 14 when kidnapper Ariel Castro took her hostage in 2004, started the organization. Colon told Fox News Digital, "Every family's experience is different, but there are some things that are the same for everybody." "Initially, there is skepticism, and then finger-pointing. Concerns like, "Where did we go wrong?" Have we overlooked something? "Oh, no, how are we going to track down this individual?" The uncertainty of our next steps.
"As time passes and the case remains unsolved for a year, two, or three, life occurs, too. You feel guilty because you can't stop living your life while you keep looking.
Call (216) 623-7697 or send an email to helpfindthemissing@city.cleveland.oh.us if you have any information on a missing individual in or around Cleveland. You may call Cleveland Missing at 216-232-6470 or visit them at 2937 West 25th St.
