Mireya Zapata 12, runaway msg 5/27/10 San Fransisco CA (BACK @ HOME)

[Nut44x4]

Missing SF 12-year-old Considered a Runaway
Posted: Friday, 28 May 2010 10:09AM
POSTER HERE
http://www.baycitynews.com/images/MissingGirl05-27-10.pdf
 
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KCBS) - A 12-year-old San Francisco girl reported missing Thursday remained missing overnight, but is now considered a runaway and is not believed to be at risk, police spokesman Officer Boaz Mariles said.

Mireya Zapata was last seen Thursday morning when she went to school, police said. At about 2:50 p.m., she sent a text message to her mother, saying she was at a bus stop and on her way home.

However, Zapata, who goes to school in the Sunset District and lives downtown, never showed up at her home, police said. The girl exchanged text messages with her mother over the next several hours but did not text a secret code letting the mother know she was OK upon request, according to police.

At about 7 p.m., Zapata's mother received a text message reading, "Don't look for me no more," and when her mother asked why, the response read, "Just don't," police said.

As of 7:30 a.m. today, the girl had still not been found, however inspectors learned through further investigation with her family that she ran away from home, according to Mariles.

Inspectors learned there were previous unreported incidents where the girl ran away from home, Mariles said.

The girl is believed to be in the East Bay, Mariles said. He declined to elaborate.

Police are still trying to locate Zapata to return her to her family.

 
http://www.kcbs.com/localnews/Missing-SF-12-year-old-Considered-a-Runaway/7347356

[MuffyBee]

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/05/missing_12-year-old_mireya_zap.php
Missing 12-Year-Old Mireya Zapata has Gone Missing Before
May 28, 2010


Anyone who sees Mireya Zapata is urged to call (415) 553-1071

Public assistance is sought in tracking down Mireya Zapata, 12, who hasn't been seen since yesterday and sent her mother several disturbing text messages.

But while police initially reported that Zapata does not have a history of running away, she certainly does have a history of going missing and sparking police investigations and media entreaties to the public.

Two years ago, Zapata, then 10, returned to her family apartment in tears after more than 24 hours of being unaccounted for. At the time, her father told the media Mireya would only say she was with a friend in Daly City and no more. He also expressed gratitude to the media for publicizing his daughter's plight: "I think it helped," he said. "She may have seen the news that we were looking for her and decided to come home."

Perhaps it will do the same now.

Police spokesman Officer Boaz Mariles told SF Weekly that, in light of the previous incident, the case is now being handled as a runaway and not a kidnapping. He added that the SFPD is still working to reunite the family.

The 12-year-old yesterday reportedly refused to text her mother their agreed-on "secret code" confirming she was safe. Instead, she texted : "Don't look for me no more," and "Just don't."

[piwannaberookie]

I wonder who this friend is that Mireya is with. I would like to also know if it really is Mireya sending the text messages to her mother. Thank you Nutt and Muffybee for keeping us informed. I wonder if because summer vacation is starting and there is no more school for another 3 months maybe she is planning on coming back once summer break is over. Hopefully she will change her mind and come back to her home sooner if she did runaway.

[MuffyBee]

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-05-28/news/21649868_1_text-message-mireya-zapata-runaway
SF police say missing girl who texted mom ran away
May 28, 2010

2010-05-28 10:05:00 PDT San Francisco, CA 94100, United States — (05-28) 10:05 PDT San Francisco, CA (AP) --

San Francisco police say a girl who was reported missing after her mother received an unusual text message ran away.

Officer Boaz Mariles said Friday police are continuing to help the family reconnect with Mireya Zapata, but the case is being treated as a runaway, not abduction. Mariles says Mireya is a "voluntary and habitual runaway."

**************************
I wonder...In the first article Nut posted, it was said Mireya " is now considered a runaway and is not believed to be at risk, police spokesman Officer Boaz Mariles said."  Jeepers.  This girl is only twelve years old, has run away and is not believed to be at risk?     I wonder if her mother or the police have an idea with whom she's with, and that's why she's not at risk?  I wonder with whom or where she's gone or stayed with in the past?  Is it with family/relative?  If she were with someone possibly exploiting her sexually, that would be a risk, and I don't see anything about that.  Maybe Mireya is exceptionally streetwise and/or mature for her twelve years?     I'm thinking she's staying with some extended family or family friends.  Just my guess at this point.

[piwannaberookie]

i wonder how her grades her maybe she left because she got a bad grade on her report card and didn't want to show it her mom or dad. I wonder what happened to her at school that day, maybe someone said something to her to make her upset, I think there's still a lot missing we don't know about....jmo

[MuffyBee]

i wonder how her grades her maybe she left because she got a bad grade on her report card and didn't want to show it her mom or dad. I wonder what happened to her at school that day, maybe someone said something to her to make her upset, I think there's still a lot missing we don't know about....jmo

I agree with you pi.  There's a lot we don't know.  The articles say she is a repeat runaway/has runaway before.  Maybe something isn't so great at home or school. 

[piwannaberookie]

I think you could be right, Muffy, that she maybe she with another family or relative...I guess somebody is going to have to look up their family tree.

[piwannaberookie]

I read her cousin posted a comment on a news article so that eliminates one relative. A poster commented on an article person that Mireya had runaway 2 years ago andhe/she put this article up that is still on the internet . I think there is a lot of good information in this article.

Link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/25/BA9FV83KP.DTL


Missing girl back at her Tenderloin home
Tyche Hendricks,Justin Berton, Chronicle Staff Writers

Monday, February 25, 2008

Photo Courtesy / Leydi Zapata

Mireya Zapata, 10, who lives in San Francisco's Tenderloin has been missing since Saturday. Photo courtesy of Leydi Zapata
.
-(02-24) 22:32 PST San Francisco -- A 10-year-old San Francisco girl who went missing Saturday morning returned home Sunday night, knocking on the door of the family's Tenderloin apartment and collapsing in tears in the arms of her relieved parents.

"She hasn't told us what happened yet. She's just crying," Elvis Zapata, father of Mireya Zapata, said shortly after his daughter returned to the family home on Turk Street about 8 p.m. Sunday. "She said she was with a friend in Daly City, but she doesn't really want to talk. She's kind of in shock."

San Francisco police, who had mounted a search for Mireya on Saturday after her parents reported her missing, confirmed that she had been found.

Investigators were still piecing together the circumstances of the girl's disappearance and return, Sgt. Steve Mannina said.

A police inspector went to the family's home Sunday evening and spoke briefly with Mireya, but decided to interview her further Monday, Zapata said. He added that his daughter did not appear to have been physically harmed. She wasn't taken to a hospital for an examination.

Mireya's family spent Sunday canvassing the neighborhood and praying for the girl's safe return.

A fifth-grader at Marshall Elementary School, Mireya was last seen leaving her family's apartment around 9:30 a.m. Saturday.

Leydi Zapata Chan, the girl's mother, said her 4-year-old son was awake when his older sister got dressed and left the apartment.

"He said she waved and told him, 'I'll see you tomorrow,' " Chan said earlier Sunday as she clutched a stack of the photocopied pictures of her daughter she planned to distribute in the neighborhood. "It was the last time we saw her."

Elvis Zapata said he and his wife realized their daughter was gone only when they went to call her for breakfast.

"We were worried," he said. "We didn't know if she had been abducted or had just decided to walk down to the corner store. She's never left the house without telling us before."

Inside the family's two-bedroom apartment, Chan said an older boy had recently started calling the home asking for "Maria," a nickname for her daughter the mother just learned of through Mireya's friends. When the mother asked about the boy, the daughter said he was just a friend.

"We said, 'If it's just a friend, why don't you tell us more about this guy?' " Chan said. "She said, 'Mom it's no big deal.' We told her, 'Not for you. But for us, it's important.' "

Chan described the difficulty of raising her daughter and two sons in a neighborhood that has long been plagued by homelessness and drug dealing. Mireya wasn't allowed to go outside alone, and until recently, Chan or her husband walked their daughter to Marshall Elementary, at 15th and Capp streets, every morning.

But Mireya had convinced her parents that she was now old enough to join her friends on the trek.

The girl also was pushing for her parents to buy her a cell phone. Chan said she told her daughter she would consider it in three years, when Mireya became a teenager.

"She looks like a teenager, but she's not a teenager," Chan said. "She's only 10."

The Zapatas wanted to move from the neighborhood, but it was difficult to find affordable housing, Chan said. In recent years, the neighborhood had noticeably deteriorated, she added.

"There's too much homeless, too much drugs in this neighborhood now," Chan said. "You used to see the police around."

Chan said she immigrated to San Francisco from the Yucatan in Mexico eight years ago with her daughter. Chan now works as a cook at a seafood restaurant in the Ferry Building, and her husband also works in the restaurant industry.

Chan said that when the parents discussed moving from the Tenderloin to the East Bay or to suburbs such as San Bruno or Millbrae, their daughter protested, saying she had just made new friends.

On Friday night, the evening before Mireya was last seen, the girl completed her math homework early and was rewarded by being allowed to stay up late and watch the movie "The Day After Tomorrow," Chan said.

With his daughter home again Sunday night, Zapata said he was grateful to the media and the police for publicizing his daughter's disappearance. "I think it helped," he said. "She may have seen the news that we were looking for her and decided to come home."

E-mail Justin Berton at jberton@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/25/BA9FV83KP.DTL#ixzz0pfK3BV00

[Nut44x4]

Habitual Runaway Mireya Zapata Back at Home, Refusing To Say Where She Went
By Lauren Smiley, Wednesday, Jun. 2 2010 @ 4:15PM

Last week we wrote about 12-year-old runaway Mireya Zapata running away from home -- again -- and leaving her mom disturbing text messages to not look for her. Still, her parents called the San Francisco police and reached out to the media for help.

Well, Zapata turned up at her parents Civic Center home around 11 p.m. on Friday night. But her mother, Leydi Chan, says her daughter won't tell the family where she'd been or who she was with. This sounds like a slightly more stoic repeat of what happened when Zapata returned two years ago after her first very public runaway -- collapsing into her parent's arms in tears, but still staying mum. Her mother is going to take the pre-teen to family counseling this week.

"I'm going to try to do my best, because, oh my God, I don't know what to do," Chan says. "We're going to try to find some help. ... I can't tell what's going on because she was doing much better in school. She was working with the little kids in the church. It's so weird." 

Chan says that she's hoping to move away from the Civic Center neighborhood because she think Zapata met someone in the street that played a role in her running away.

Moving the kids out of the Tenderloin, huh? Well so did the district's supervisor. Perhaps these things don't happen in Fairfield.
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/06/12_year_old_mireya_zapata_back.php