{"id":5889,"date":"2017-03-26T14:56:55","date_gmt":"2017-03-26T18:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/?p=5889"},"modified":"2017-03-26T15:07:05","modified_gmt":"2017-03-26T19:07:05","slug":"girls-gone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trinitydc.edu\/president\/2017\/03\/girls-gone\/","title":{"rendered":"Girls Gone"},"content":{"rendered":"

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D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser<\/a> and Chief of Police Peter Newsham are addressing an alarming problem in the city:\u00a0 the number of young girls, mostly black and Latina teenagers, who go missing<\/a> each week.\u00a0\u00a0 While the problem has existed for quite some time, the disappearance of Relisha Rudd<\/a> 3 years ago brought DC’s situation to national prominence.\u00a0 Recently, police have heightened attention to these cases by tweeting every single missing person report.\u00a0 While some people believe the number of cases has increased, the police say that only the public reports have increased, the actual number of cases remains roughly the same.\u00a0 However, in a city where people breathlessly hang onto news about the latest hot new bar opening or presidential golf outing, sometimes we seem to suffer a dearth of interest, compassion, and justifiable outrage over the conditions and consequences of life for children who struggle to live each day on the margins just a few blocks over from trendy new neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

This is a problem of great concern to Trinity because of the way in which it has the potential to affect our students and their families, as well as faculty and staff.\u00a0 And, given our mission to work to achieve social justice, especially for girls and women, we must consider ways in which Trinity can offer assistance and support to the Mayor’s effort.\u00a0 We are particularly concerned about the root causes of the disappearance of young black and brown women in our city, whether through violence or efforts to escape violence and despair, and spectre of human trafficking.\u00a0 The Congressional Black Caucus<\/a> has asked the Justice Department and FBI to lend their resources to helping to solve the problem.<\/p>\n

Awareness<\/strong><\/em> is the first step.\u00a0 Some of the notoriety about this problem has occurred because the Metropolitan Police Department has started tweeting out a notice about every single missing person in the city.\u00a0 You can follow the MPD Twitter feed @DCPoliceDept<\/p>\n

MPD also has a web page devoted to the missing persons list <\/a>with active links to each case.<\/p>\n

I urge members of the Trinity community to take a look at that list and to call the police or text tips per these instructions on the MPD website:\u00a0 “If you have information about any of these cases, please conact the Metropolitan Police Department at (202) 727-9099 or text your tip to the Department’s TEXT TIP LINE to 50411.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Mayor Bowser’s office issued a press release on Friday that includes these six steps she is taking to improve efforts to identify, locate and help missing persons and especially children and teenagers:<\/p>\n