Authorities have recorded more than 1,000 missing minors in the city of Cleveland in Ohio this year, including nearly 50 who have disappeared just this month.
In its missing children website, the Ohio Attorney General's Office said that there were a total of 1,072 children that have been reported missing so far this year from the Cleveland-Akron area. Additionally, the month of August had more than 35 minors going missing from the same area.
Missing Children in Cleveland
In a statement during an interview on Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said that they are of course worried about the situation. He added that what officials do know about the number is that some of the missing minors were repeated runaways and noted that local police have already talked about that.
Yost added that all of these cases have localized reporting problems that are a function of local conditions. The attorney general also said that they are doing their best to encourage compliance and improve assistance to remove barriers but noted that at the end of the day, they have to rely on local partners that they cannot control, as per Fox News.
The official said that he was fearful of all kinds of things that fall through the cracks including missing children. Yost noted that he relies on the tenacity of a worried parent more than he does a harried bureaucrat whose job is simply to put data into a computer.
The Ohio attorney general said that the state was already working with the University of Toledo in order to create an improved statewide data collection and reporting system. But for now, Yost said that reporting deficiencies and even search efforts are being impacted by what was described as "under-resourced law enforcement."
Yost noted that law enforcement cannot be everywhere and are not able to see everything at once. He said that they rely on people and the entire population because there are roughly 11.7 million individuals who can keep their eyes out for any anomalies.
Extraordinary Surge of Missing Minors
The disappearance cases in northern Ohio began in May when almost 30 minors disappeared in just the first two weeks of the month. At the time, officials argued that there was an "extraordinary surge" in disappearances, according to the New York Post.
Yost said that data for runaway cases, abductions, or sex trafficking is not always entered properly as the state continues to deal with a police staffing shortage. The president of Cleveland Missing and the police chief of Newburgh Heights, John Majoy, had previously sounded the alarm on the surge in missing children.
In a statement, he said that there have been a lot more disappearances being seen in 2023 compared to previous years. Majoy said that the situation is particularly alarming because officials do not know the exact reason behind the disappearance of some of the minors.
One worried parent, Breana Brown, hosted a community gathering this month where attendees shared parenting tips while bringing awareness to other Northeast Ohio kids beyond her child, Keshuan, who have not yet made it back home safely, said News5 Cleveland.
