79 replies to this topic

[Jenn]

http://www.ultimatem...g-childrens-day

Free Child ID Kits for National Missing Children's Day

May 20, 2010 1:24 am

Each year, more than 800,000 children are reported missing in America. Yet, most parents don’t keep a copy of their child’s fingerprints or other identifying information on hand in case of an emergency.

In recognition of National Missing Children’s Day, Tuesday, May 25, Best Western Westchase Mini-Suites (2950 West Sam Houston Parkway South) and the Texas Center For the Missing encourage parents to stop by the hotel from 8 a.m. – 8 p.m. to receive a free child identification kit and tips for talking to kids about safety.

The kits include instructions and supplies to collect a child's fingerprints, dental records, personal information, photo and DNA sample. A completed kit can then be made available to police should a child be reported missing.

First proclaimed by President Ronald Reagan and observed by every administration since, May 25 is the anniversary of the day when six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared from a New York street corner on his way to school in 1979. Etan’s case brought widespread attention to his and the many others who become missing everyday. His recognition eventually led to a nationwide commitment to help locate and recover missing children.

[Jenn]

http://pr-usa.net/in...12868&Itemid=33

Ten Ways Parents Can Keep Children Safe This Summer 

School is out and summer is an exciting time for kids. What are your child's plans? Will he or she be spending time home alone or going to local parks and swimming pools with friends? The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children says there are ten things parents can do to keep their children safe this summer.

  1. MAKE SURE children know their full names, address, telephone numbers
    and how to use the telephone.

  2. BE SURE children know what to do in case of an emergency and how to
    reach you using cell phone or pager number.  Children should have a
    neighbor or trusted adult they may call if they're scared or there's an
    emergency.

  3. REVIEW the rules with your children about whose homes they may visit
    and discuss the boundaries of where they may and may not go in the
    neighborhood.

  4. MAKE SURE children know to stay away from pools, creeks, or any body of
    water without adult supervision.

  5. CAUTION children to keep the door locked and not to open the door or
    talk to anyone who comes to the door when they are home alone.

  6. DON'T drop your children off at malls, movies, video arcades or parks.
    These are not safe places for children to be alone.  Make certain a
    responsible adult supervises your younger children at all times when
    they are outside and away from home.

  7. TEACH your children in whose vehicle they may ride.  Children should be
    cautioned to never approach any vehicle, occupied or not, unless
    accompanied by a parent or other trusted adult.

  8. BE SURE your children know their curfew and check in with you if they
    are going to be late.  If children are playing outside after dark, make
    sure they wear reflective clothing and stay close to home.

  9. CHOOSE babysitters with care.  Obtain references from family, friends,
    and neighbors.  Many states now have registries for public access to
    check criminal history or sex-offender status.  Observe the
    babysitter's interaction with your children, and ask your children how
    they feel about the babysitter.

  10. CHECK out camp and other summer programs before enrolling your
      children.  See if a background screening check is completed on the
      individuals working with the children.  Make sure there will be adult
      supervision of your children at all times, and make sure you are made
      aware of all activities and field trips offered by the camp or
      program.


"Child safety is important all year, but summer is an especially important time for parents and children to include safety in their activities," according to Ernie Allen, President & CEO of NCMEC. "Always listen to your children and keep the lines of communication open. Your children are your best source for determining if everything is okay. Teach your children to get out of dangerous or uncomfortable situations right away and practice basic safety skills with them. Make sure they know they are able to tell you about anything that makes them feel scared, uncomfortable, or confused."

NCMEC also recommends that parents be sure all custody documents are in order and certified copies are available in case your children are not returned from a scheduled summer visit.

For additional safety tips and information visit www.missingkids.com or www.netsmartz.org.

NCMEC is the leading nonprofit organization dealing with the issues of missing and sexually exploited children and operates a 24-hour toll free national hotline for reporting missing child cases. NCMEC has played a role in the recovery of more than 151,000 children and today, more children come home safely than ever before. Last year alone we helped recover 13,075 children, improving our recovery rate from 62 percent in 1990 to 97.4 percent today. And more of those who prey on children are being identified and prosecuted. Yet too many children are still missing and too many children are still the victims of sexual exploitation. There is much more that needs to be done.

About the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is a 501©(3) nonprofit organization. Since it was established by Congress in 1984, the organization has operated the toll-free 24-hour national missing children's hotline which has handled more than 2,475,300 calls. It has assisted law enforcement in the recovery of more than 151,300 children. The organization's CyberTipline has handled more than 894,700 reports of child sexual exploitation and its Child Victim Identification Program has reviewed and analyzed more than 34,566,000 pornography images and videos. The organization works in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice's office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. To learn more about NCMEC, call its toll-free, 24-hour hotline at 1-800-THE-LOST or visit its web site at www.missingkids.com.

Source: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

[Jenn]

http://scotchplains....ranger-danger-2

Parents Learn How to Combat 'Stranger Danger'
The Goddard School in Fanwood hosts a seminar that offers tips for parents Tuesday night.

By Patrick Sullivan  | October 13, 2010

Two weeks after two reported child-luring incidents near Westfield elementary schools, the Goddard School in Fanwood hosted a seminar for parents on how to keep their children safer. Alan Robinson, a former Florida police officer and a member of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, outlined tips and techniques in a workshop that attracted close to 30 parents from Fanwood, Scotch Plains, Westfield and other area towns.

"It was great," Goddard director Tricia Ferrara said. "It was informative and [Robinson] gave great tips. We're fortunate we were able to provide this service for parents."

Robinson, who said he has worked more than 30 years in law enforcement, anchored his presentation with chilling facts and statistics. He said that  705 children were abducted through online solicitation, and that 80 percent of child abductions occur within a quarter mile of the victims' front door. He used examples from cases he worked and anecdotes about his own life to show the predatory mindset of pedophiles.

"Child molesters always make it a game," he said. "If a child can be confused, he can be exploited."

The seminar covered a wide variety of topics, including an overview of the types of child molesters, what parents should and shouldn't do when they discover their child missing in a public place, internet safety and some teaching techniques parents can use to keep their children safe. The two greatest weapons in a child's arsenal, Robinson said, are communication and self-esteem. A child has to know she can tell her parents anything, and she has to know that "your body is yours and nobody has a right to touch you in the bathing suit part of your body."

The seminar comes in the weeks following two apparent child luring cases in Westfield: one near Wilson Elementary School in Westfield, in which a masked man allegedly asked two students to get into his car, and another near Franklin Elementary School, in which a driver reportedly attempted to lure a child into his car. Westfield police arrested a man in connection with the Wilson case.

The two Westfield cases have caused a growing wave of concern among parents in the area, with emails being exchanged in multiple towns with a picture of the Wilson suspect and a picture of a man one mother says is trying to lure children in Scotch Plains. Scotch Plains police say they are not actively investigating

This past weekend, there was a child abduction scare in Cranford, and on Monday a 20-year-old woman was reportedly kidnapped and sexually assaulted while walking in Westfield.

Though parents and children are up against true predators who expend significant energy on the best methods of luring children, Robinson said, they are not helpless. Likening child molesters to lions that pick off the weak members of a herd, Robinson outlined three lessons parents can teach their children as early as kindergarten.

The first is to use the buddy system. Predators prey on lone children, Robinson said, so children should never go anywhere without a friend or a sibling. The second is what Robinson called, "Check first." Children should learn to say, "I have to check first with my parents" – or the person in charge – "before getting into a car, even with someone I know, or accepting money or gifts." The third method Robinson called "No-Go-Tell:" If a child feels frightened or threatened, he or she should shout, "No!" as loud as possible, then go and tell someone he trusts.

These techniques are part of an "age-skill matrix" that matches typical children's development with what they should know, such as their names, their parents' names, their full addresses and the state in which they live. Robinson also recommended that parents make an ID card for their children to be kept in the home and changed every six months, and to have their children make dental impressions on a piece of Styrofoam.

In Union County, the sheriff's office offers a child fingerprinting service and issues identification cards to children. Sheriff Ralph Froelich, in an interview with Patch, said the program serves as a vital way to have material available to law enforcement in case a child goes missing.

He added that telling a child to never talk to strangers is bad advice, because it frightens children. They are also more inclined to think of ugly, scary strangers, he said, when the average child molester is just that: average. Most are soft-spoken and "act more like Mr. Rogers," and use lures and tricks in order to gain a child's trust to better exploit her.

Robinson offered similar advice: "You have to teach [children] how to handle situations, not individuals," he said.

[Denise Harrison]

http://www.chron.com...an/7260188.html

2 officers suspended over missing-teen case

One of them also gets demoted after 13-year-old special-needs student is left on street corner
By MIKE TOLSON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Oct. 22, 2010, 7:51PM

Two Harris County deputy constables were suspended Friday and one of them demoted for failing to maintain custody of a mentally impaired teen until a safe place had been found for him.

Precinct 6 Constable Victor Trevino called his deputies' actions "unacceptable" and promised additional training so that no special needs individual would ever again be dumped on a street corner.

Deputy Derrick Jarardi received a two-week suspension without pay for allowing Kenneth Miller to go off on his own Tuesday night. Cpl. Robert Avendano got the same punishment and was demoted to deputy. Trevino said he did not fire the officers because both had otherwise good service records and had acknowledged and apologized for their mistake.

Miller, a 13-year-old middle school student, spent three days confused and wandering the streets near downtown before being reunited with his parents Thursday after University of Houston police picked him up while he panhandled outside the UH law school. He was recognized by a deputy constable who happened to be at the county's inmate processing center, where UH officers had taken him to be fingerprinted in hopes of coming up with a positive identification.

"There was a failure (by) both of them to follow departmental guidelines," Trevino said after announcing the punishment. "Definitely we've got to improve, and I'm committed to that."

Lost and showing signs of mental instability, Miller did not give his actual name to law enforcement personnel or social service employees who questioned him, and he offered conflicting dates of birth, Trevino said. He was finally dropped off on a corner on the eastern edge of downtown Tuesday night by Jarardi, who had spent several hours trying to find a facility that would accept him until his parents could be located. Avendano also was on the scene earlier in the evening when the officers were called to a homeless shelter that had declined to accept Miller because he appeared to be a minor in need of psychiatric assistance.
Teenager is bipolar

Miller suffers from a bipolar disorder, his mother said, and also struggles with hyperactivity and attention deficit. She said he wandered away from his apartment complex Monday afternoon after he was dropped off a few blocks away by a school bus. She and her husband, frantic over his disappearance, filed a missing persons report that evening with the Houston Police Department. Trevino said his officers checked with HPD the next day but were not told of a missing teen matching Miller's description.

Miller, who lives with his parents and three siblings near Hobby Airport, walked north along Gulf Freeway frontage roads Monday night and was first assisted Tuesday morning by a woman he approached in a grocery parking lot at Polk and Cullen. Miller told the woman he was lost and trying to get home. The woman, who was not homeless as first reported, called Precinct 6 because she had experience working with deputy constables there, Trevino said.

The woman was directed to the Open Door homeless shelter on the east side. She took Miller via Metro bus to the shelter, only to have him turned away. She called the constable's office again, bringing both Jarardi and Avendano to the scene. The officers reportedly questioned him but got confusing answers, as had staff at the shelter. Miller gave differing birth dates and said that he was Chinese and visiting from Beijing, Trevino said.
Refused hospital

The officers left him outside the shelter, but Jarardi later returned and picked him up. The deputy took him to a Child Protective Services location in southwest Houston, where a worker spoke with Miller at length. Because of uncertainty over his age and the lack of a positive ID, Miller was not allowed to remain. Jarardi was advised to take him to Ben Taub General Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation, Trevino said. When the youth said he did not want to go there, Jarardi dropped him off at the corner of Cullen and St. Emanuel.

"They should have contacted MHMR — there are several locations - or they should have gone to Ben Taub," Trevino said. "While other steps were taken (on Miller's behalf), it was not enough. One thing that should have never happened is his being left on a street corner."

Community activist Quanell X, whom Miller's parents turned to for assistance Friday, praised the unnamed woman who had tried to help their son, calling her an "angel and a blessing." He said it was difficult to understand why the officers did not recognize that Miller was a student in the Pasadena ISD. Quanell said a security camera videotape at the shelter clearly shows Miller with school books and a book bag.

Jarardi reportedly placed a call to the Pasadena school offices but could not reach anyone because the office was closed. Asked why his officers did not call the school district police, Trevino bristled and said there was little to be gained by going over the details of what was done or not done.

"You'll never accomplish anything by pointing fingers," he said. "I accept responsibility. The final actions we took were inappropriate."

Quanell, however, said that numerous agencies dropped the ball in Martin's case.

"This was a complete breakdown," he said. "You can't just lay it on this man's lap."

[Kelly]

http://www.nytimes.c...ssing.html?_r=1

I.R.S. Sits on Data Pointing to Missing Children

By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Published: November 12, 2010


For parents of missing children, any scrap of information that could lead to an abductor is precious.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va., has a wall of posters dedicated to unsolved cases.

At the center, Colin McNally ages an image of a girl taken by a relative at 4. She would now be 17.

Three years into an excruciating search for her abducted son, Susan Lau got such a tip. Her estranged husband, who had absconded with their 9-year-old from Brooklyn, had apparently filed a tax return claiming the boy as an exemption.

Investigators moved quickly to seek the address where his tax refund had been mailed. But the Internal Revenue Service was not forthcoming.

“They just basically said forget about it,” said Julianne Sylva, a child abduction investigator who is now deputy district attorney in Santa Clara County, Calif.

The government, which by its own admission has data that could be helpful in tracking down the thousands of missing children in the United States, says that taxpayer privacy laws severely restrict the release of information from tax returns. “We will do whatever we can within the confines of the law to make it easier for law enforcement to find abducted children,” said Michelle Eldridge, an I.R.S. spokeswoman.

The privacy laws, enacted a generation ago to prevent Watergate-era abuses of confidential taxpayer information, have specific exceptions allowing the I.R.S. to turn over information in child support cases and to help federal agencies determine whether an applicant qualifies for income-based federal benefits.

But because of guidelines in the handling of criminal cases, there are several obstacles for parents and investigators pursuing a child abductor — even when the taxpayer in question is a fugitive and the subject of a felony warrant.

“It’s one of those areas where you would hope that common sense would prevail,” said Ernie Allen, president and chief executive of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “We are talking about people who are fugitives, who have criminal warrants against them. And children who are at risk.”

About 200,000 family abductions are reported each year in the United States, most of which stem from custody disputes between estranged spouses. About 12,000 last longer than six months, according to Justice Department statistics, and involve parental abductors who assume false identities and travel the country to escape detection.

But, counterintuitive as it may seem, a significant number file one of bureaucracy’s most invasive documents, a federal tax return. A study released by the Treasury Department in 2007 examined the Social Security numbers of 1,700 missing children and the relatives suspected of abducting them, and found that more than a third had been used in tax returns filed after the abductions took place.

Criminologists say it is unclear what motivates a child abductor to file a tax return: confusion, financial desperation for a refund or an attempt to avoid compounding their criminal problems by failing to pay taxes. Whatever the reason, the details in a return on an abductor’s whereabouts, work history and mailing address can be crucial to detectives searching for a missing child.

“It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” said Harold Copus, a retired F.B.I. agent who investigated missing child cases, of why abductors provide such information. “But if they were thinking clearly, they wouldn’t have abducted their child in the first place.”

The law forbids the I.R.S. from turning over data from tax returns unless a parental abduction is being investigated as a federal crime and a United States district judge orders the information released. But the vast majority of parental abduction cases are investigated by state and local prosecutors, not as federal crimes, say investigators and missing children’s advocates. Even when the F.B.I. does intercede in parental abduction cases, requests for I.R.S. data are rarely granted.

When the Treasury Department study identified hundreds of suspected abductors who had filed tax returns, for instance, a federal judge in Virginia refused to issue an order authorizing the I.R.S. to turn over their addresses to investigators. The judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, declined to discuss her decision.

Advocates for missing children say that federal judges often argue that parental abductions are better suited to family court than criminal court.

“There’s this sense that because the child is with at least one of their parents, it’s not really a problem,” said Abby Potash, director of Team Hope, which counsels parents who are searching for a missing child. Ms. Potash’s son was abducted by a relative and kept for eight months before he was recovered. “But when you’re the parent who’s left behind, it is devastating. You’re being robbed of your son or daughter’s childhood.”

In Ms. Lau’s case, her search for her missing son dragged on for two years after the I.R.S. refused investigators’ request for her ex-husband’s tax return. She actually got the tip from the I.R.S., which disallowed her request to claim the boy on her own tax return because someone else had. The boy was eventually found in Utah, after his photo appeared in a flier distributed by missing children’s groups, and he was reunited with his mother at age 15 — five years after they were separated.

I.R.S. officials are quick to point out that they have worked closely with missing children’s advocates in some areas. The I.R.S.’s “Picture Them Home” program has included photos of thousands of missing children with forms mailed to millions of taxpayers since 2001. More than 80 children were recovered with the help of that program.

Ernie Allen, chief of the center, says, “It’s one of those areas where you would hope that common sense would prevail.”

Still, attempts to change the law to give the tax agency more latitude have sputtered over the last decade. Dennis DeConcini, a former Democratic senator from Arizona, lobbied for the change in 2004 on behalf of a child advocacy group, but said that it never gained traction because some members of Congress feared that any release of I.R.S. data could lead to a gradual erosion of taxpayer privacy. In recent years, much of the legislation involving missing children has focused on international abductions.

One problem missing children’s advocates have wrestled with in proposing legislation is determining how much information the I.R.S. should be asked to release from a suspected abductor’s tax return. Should disclosure be required only if a child’s Social Security number is listed on a return? Should child abduction investigators be given only the address where a tax return was mailed? Or the location of an employer who has withheld taxes on a suspected abductor?

Griselda Gonzalez, who has not seen her children since 2007, holds fleeting hope that some type of information might reunite her family. Diego and Tammy Flores were just 2 and 3 years old when their father took them from their home in Victorville, Calif., for a weeklong visit and never returned. After Ms. Gonzalez reported their disappearance, a felony warrant for kidnapping was issued for the father, Francisco Flores. His financial records suggest he meticulously planned his actions for months — withdrawing money from various accounts and taking out a second mortgage — so Ms. Gonzalez doubts he would claim the children as dependents on a tax return.

But it gnaws at her that some federal laws seemed more concerned with the privacy of a fugitive than the safety of children.

“When your kids are taken from you, the hardest part is at night, thinking about them going to sleep,” she said. “You wonder who’s tucking them in, who will hug them if they have a bad dream or taking them to the bathroom if they wake up. And you ask yourself whether you’ve done everything possible to find them.”

“It would be good to know that you tried everything,” she said.

Missing children’s advocates see the I.R.S. data as a potentially powerful resource.

“There are hundreds of cases this could help solve,” said Cindy Rudometkin of the Polly Klaas Foundation. “And even if it helped solve one case — imagine if that child returned home was yours.”