http://www.kvue.com/news/Missing-teenagers-also-missing-from-national-database-85689092.htmlby Brian New / KENS 5 TV
Missing teenagers also missing from national database (video at link above)
Posted on February 27, 2010 at 10:39 AM
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Rebecca Munoz’s 17-year-old daughter, Alexandra, has been missing for more than a month, and her mother fears she’s in trouble.
"Something is going to happen to her,” she said.
Munoz said her daughter’s problems started with her addiction to MySpace. She said that’s where she meets older men.
These days this Internet site is the only way Munoz knows she's alive.
The latest status update on Alexandra’s MySpace page states, ‘I’m scared. I'm so much in pain … I feel like I’m dying."
Despite these desperate words, there are no search teams looking for her, no Amber Alerts issued, and with the exception of this interview, there's been no media coverage.
That’s because Alexandra is a teenage runaway.
In most runaway cases, there's little law enforcement agencies do except enter the missing teenager into a database called the National Crime Information Center or N.C.I.C.
The information in this database is shared with all law enforcement agencies across the country.
Munoz is counting on it to find her daughter.
"She could leave out of town, out of state, and her name is going to follow her," said the worried mother.
However, recent reports indicate many of those who are missing are also missing from N.C.I.C.
US Congress has ordered a federal investigation into how police departments handle runaway cases.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, over the past three years law enforcement agencies in the San Antonio have failed to enter a missing-person report into N.C.I.C. within 24 hours 13.9% of the time.
Federal law requires it to be done within two hours.
SAPD spokesperson Sgt. Chris Benavides said the department has a strict policy when it comes to entering missing-person reports.
"I'm not sure where they are getting their statistics or where they are coming up with that percentage, but I can tell you we enter that information as soon as possible," he said.
An audit conducted by the Texas Department of Public Safety in December indicated SAPD is improving on how it enters missing-persons reports into N.C.I.C, but the audit still found cases of ‘untimely’ and ‘incomplete’ entries.
The Bexar County Sheriff's Office said it too has a strict policy when it comes to entering runaways, but said human errors do happen.
Kate Kohl, director of the Heidi Search Center, said education is the solution. She said just as big of a problem as law enforcement not entering reports is parents not reporting runaways.
"It takes the one that doesn't get entered that doesn't make it home - that's not good," she said.
Despite her fears, Munoz has hope of finding her daughter because her daughter has been entered into N.C.I.C.
And for a parent of a runaway, even a little hope is better than none.
