It took days of public outrage and the spreading of inaccurate information on social media for the country to realize that Black and Latinx girls frequently go missing in the nation’s capital.
Viral, albeit imprecise, tweets about 14 missing girls in Washington, D.C. eventually turned into a news story about public apathy surrounding the thousands of black and brown girls who vanish every year. It became a story about the glaring lack of media attention on girls of color, the issue of sex trafficking across the country, and the damage caused when missing girls are reduced to kids who have simply left their homes — a problem that’s perpetuated by law enforcement nationwide.
According to the most recent data from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), most of the D.C. girls who drew attention over the past two weeks have since been found. Five black girls are currently missing, and the MPD considers them “runaways.”
Much has already been said about the harm caused when law enforcement uses that term. As the Huffington Post reported, it erases the legitimate reasons why young girls of color leave their homes, such as the need to escape abuse. Put simply, the word “runaway” doesn’t typically generate media coverage or sense of urgency from the public.
Missing from most media reports, however, are the voices of black and Latinx youth themselves who are grappling with the news and misinformation about the missing, and confronting some of the dangers that come with living in the nation’s capital.
Sitting in a circle in the hallway of a D.C. high school, three 10th grade girls told ThinkProgress that they don’t always feel safe walking the streets and don’t trust news outlets to tell them what’s really happening. More alarmingly, Amyah, Kerlyn, and Latajah said police can’t be counted on to keep them out of danger.
A troubling disconnect
Despite the MPD’s reported commitment to locating the missing, the teens who spoke to ThinkProgress were skeptical. They don’t feel safe walking alone outside, and, due to conflicting news reports, they don’t know who or what to believe about what’s really happening to young girls of color.
“I think it’s crazy,” Latajah said. “I don’t know what to believe. They make up so many stories.”
There is one thing the three teenagers were certain of: they would not contact the police if they were in trouble and felt the need to run away from home. They all fear what could happen if they made that choice.
“They’ll probably take it out of proportion,” Amayah said. “Like you could need a little bit of help — maybe for them to talk to your parents. They’ll probably take you and put you in a orphanage or something like that [and] have you going through court dates. You don’t need more problems on your shoulder. You just need someone to look out for you.”
“I don’t trust them,” Latajah echoed.
Beyond the adverse effects that could come with talking to law enforcement, the three students believe that police just aren’t concerned about people who look like them.
“Mostly [police] care about the money,” Kerlyn said. “So whoever’s paying them the most, that’s who they’re gonna pay the most attention to.”
Black and brown families don’t have the financial resources to attract the attention of law enforcement or the public, so cops stop looking after a while, Latajah said.
According to Amayah, racism perpetuated by the media also plays a role in who benefits from local policing. “The news broadcasts certain things — not everything that’s going on, not all problems,” she said. “I don’t think they show colored girls as they should, or colored people period, unless they committed a crime or something like that.” Undervalued by the public, it’s no wonder that police don’t prioritize black and brown youth, including girls, she said.
Altogether, the general lack of trust in police is a key reason why so many young people are running away from home instead of seeking help from authorities who are theoretically supposed to assist them, the students said.
It is impossible to know how many black and brown girls living in the city are mistrustful of law enforcement. There are likely some who would feel comfortable dialing 911 or showing up at a police station for safe haven. But if there are hundreds going missing every year, it begs the question: Why are so many people running away instead of putting their lives in the hands of police?
The MPD insists that nothing sinister is behind the recent disappearances, and says the number of missing girls isn’t increasing. Instead, MPD says it’s merely switched up the approach to searching for missing people by posting more photos on social media. More than 500 juveniles have gone missing this year, nearly all of whom have since been found by the MPD. According to police spokeswoman Karimah Bilal, the majority of people left on their own accord. Commander Chanel Dickerson denies that kidnapping and trafficking are concerns. On its website, the MPD also boasts that it solves “more than 99 percent of missing persons cases.”
Underlying law enforcement’s response to the issue is the idea that the problem isn’t as big as it’s been made out to be; that public perception doesn’t reflect the statistics.
But that framing discounts what should still be considered a major problem: Black and brown girls are still more likely to turn up missing, and most people don’t bat an eyelash. Even more troubling, young people don’t think law enforcement will protect them from a similar fate. They do not feel seen or heard.
‘We need to talk about certain things.’
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to preventing people from going missing — whether they are “runaways ”or victims of kidnapping and trafficking.
On March 24, Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office unveiled six initiatives “to locate young people who have been reported as missing, provide critical resources to better address the issues that cause young people to run away from home, and support young people who may be considering leaving home.”
Overall, the initiatives call on community investment to address the problem. For instance, more officers will work for the MPD’s Children and Family Services Division; organizations dedicated to child services will work with community groups to evaluate and provide resources for missing persons when they’re found; a working group to research “trends” and establish a support system for families coping with a missing person.
For their part, Amayah, Latajah, and Kerlyn think authority figures — especially police — should be proactive in establishing trusting relationships with young people, so that endangered girls feel comfortable asking for help. None of them contend that police have done enough to earn their trust.
“I believe they should start a community group. If they started something like that, more people would say, ‘Oh they did this for us. Maybe they aren’t as bad as we see them,’” said Kerlyn.
But police aren’t the only ones who could be doing more.
Once news of the missing girls became a national story, none of the students’ teachers brought it up in class. To their knowledge, few — if any — instructors or administrators talked to other classes. But this would have been a perfect time for them to start a productive dialogue and lay groundwork to potentially reduce the number of runaways in the city, the girls told ThinkProgress.
“We have to leave. We have to go home after school,” Latajah said. “They need to make sure we’re ok and stuff. We need to talk about certain things.” Kerlyn added, “Some people might be struggling in life and teachers need to be open-minded about that.”
The media also has a responsibility to paint black and Latinx girls in a more positive light, the high schoolers said. When that happens, public opinion will change and more people will care about them before and after they disappear, Amayah said.
“You can never really be sure about what’s going on,” she said. “A lot of them are probably dead, and we don’t even know about it.”