YMC
August 27th, 2008, 5:01 am
Before reading on, do me a favor and count to 120.
120 seconds = two minutes. In those two minutes, three children have gone missing. In other words, every 40 seconds, a child goes missing. And it's not just children abducted by strangers. It also includes children kidnapped by their non-custodial parent, and runaway children.
Did you sigh, hesitate, or cringe when you read "runaway children?" Do you believe runaway children shouldn't be included or posted as amber alerts? Most people do, including law enforcement, so, don't feel bad.
What's wrong with this is, law enforcement sometimes are too quick to label a child due to their age, past history, family history, who the childs friends are, and even mental capacity. And when that happens, a missing report doesn't get filed. Mom and/or Dad, or Legal Guardian are sent home feeling hopeless. Then the worry sets in. The worry of not knowing where their child is. Is she/he hungry? Are they warm enough? How will they survive without their medication?And so many other worries.
I'm not sayig ALL law enforcement agencies are guilty of ignoring runaway children. However, there are a lot out there that do.
On January 22, 1999, a mother went to the police station (in Phoenix, AZ), to report that her 17 year old daughter had gone missing. Because the daughter had run away the previous September, the police refused to file a missing report. They sent her home.
On Wednesday, August 20, 2008, a man went online to research unidentified bodies. He was looking for his sister. The 17 year old that had gone missing in 1999. And this wasn't his first time looking for her. He googled her stats (at the time she had gone missing), and the jewerly she was wearing. The very first link he clicked displayed a photo of a gal that strongly resembled his sister. It was a morgue photo.
Twenty four hours later, after emails, phone calls, dental comparision, jewerly identification, the unidentified gal had a name, Tawni Lee Mazzone.
While it's great the gal was finally identified, it's sad that it took 9 years and two days short of seven months for it to happen! You see, on January 26, 1999, Tawni was pushed out of a car that was traveling 75 mph on a Phoenix highway. She was in a coma for 24 hours, then passed away. She died five days AFTER her Mother had tried to report her missing! So for 9 years and almost seven months, Tawni laid in the morgue waiting to be identified!
What makes matters worse is, Tawni isn't the only one. There's thousands of unidenfied bodies here in the United States. Thousands! Babies, children, teenagers, and adults. All ages. All races. All sizes.
Tawni's story hits real close to home for me, and hundreds of other volunteers. For two years I looked at her mogue photo's every single day. I had it on my myspace page (http://yourmichigan.com/www.myspace.com/myawarenessgroup), along with all her stats, when and where she was found. (I've since replaced the photo with what she looked like when she was alive).
For two years many young girls were compared to Tawni's morgue photo. And when there were times we were certain we found a match, we submitted the information to the Maricopa Coroners Office. However, the dna didn't match each time. We never would have been able to come up with a match for Tawni's missing report was never filed.
Too bad back in 99 there wasn't the federal law that all missing child cases must be accepted. That should not happen today. Laws have changed somewhat since. Unfortunately, because unidentified bodies are not often properly processed AND missing person cases of ALL ages do not have all their data entered into the appropriate databases, we are faced with the crisis of 40,000+ unidentified bodies.
We can do something about this. Write to your congresspersons, state representative, governors, and law enforcement agencies.
The following is a copy and paste from another forum I'm on. It was written by Kelly Jolkowski, mother of a missing son (since June 13, 2001), Jason.
Quote:
Campaign for the missing and unidentified
What do I need to do?
The campaign seeks persons in each state who are willing to write to their own district's elected official to ask for sponsorship. This is more than a letter writing campaign. Please read all of the information presented before making your committment.
These are the basic steps involved:
1) If you are interested in helping make a difference in the lives of thousands of missing persons and their families, send an email to campaignforthemissing@projectjason.org (campaignforthemissing@projectjason.org) Give us your name and the state in which you live.
2) Look up the name and contact information for your state senator. This is the official who works with state law rather than federal. You may look up your representative here http://www.ncsl.org/public/leglinks.cfm (http://www.ncsl.org/public/leglinks.cfm)
3) Send either via email or US mail the prepared letter you will find at the end of this posting to that representative. You are asking them to sponsor this bill and to present it to the senate.
4) If you get a negative response, write to other senators until sponsorship is obtained. (My hope is that there will be more than one volunteer in each state, so that no one is working on it alone.)
The following is a simplified version of how the process flows in Nebraska. This may vary slightly state to state. The senator's aides in your state will be very willing to explain the process to you.
When a senator agrees to sponsor the bill, they will need to have their legislative aides research to ensure that nothing in the model will supersede current state law. If there are sections of the model already in place, those sections can be removed. A determination of fiscal (financial) impact may be prepared by the aides or other state employees.
Important Note about Fiscal Impact:
It is imperative that you submit the letter from the DNA Lab (http://www.projectjason.org/downloads/CampaignDNALetter.pdf) in TX (CHI) to your senator(s) and make sure they understand that CHI will bear the burden of the cost of DNA processing. A link to this letter is on the Pertinent Files thread. If you do not make this clear, your state will include DNA processing in their fiscal impact statement and potentially end up killing the bill for lack of funding to pay for DNA processing. CHI does it for free and is a government sanctioned lab.
When we find multiple senators to sponsor the bill in a single state, we can inform them who the original sponsor is, so that their offices can work together to research before the model goes to the writers. Any changes made are then presented to the campaign helpers in each state for approval. We will also help with this. Be sure to get sponsorship from persons in both the house and the senate.
The model and additions/corrections/deletions is forwarded to the state's bill writers. Each state has certain language/formats that bills are written in. After the bill is written, another check should take place to ensure there are no errors.
The bill is now scheduled to be introduced to the legislature. It is assigned a number. After presentation, the bill is forwarded to a committee. After that point, a public hearing is scheduled.
At the hearing, interested citizens are invited to testify before the committee members. In NE, you can speak for up to 5 minutes. There may be persons or groups present who are testifying against the bill. The committee can opt to ask the citizens who testify questions about the bill. If you volunteer to assist with the campaign, you are not required to testify. We will be able to assist in locating families of the missing and representatives of organizations who are willing to do this.
After the hearing, the committee can "kill" the bill, take no action, or pass it out of committee to be debated upon by all of the senators at a later date.
Once passed out of the committee, the bill is debated twice, and if passed, will go to the governor. He/She can either sign it or veto it. (This may very slightly by state.)
Assuming success, you now have a law! (The law does not take effect upon signing.)
There are two additions I wish to see in this bill.
The additions I wish to add include: (Project Jason Amendments)
The law enforcement agency, upon acceptance of a missing persons report, shall inform the reporting citizen of one of two resources, based upon the age of the missing person. If the missing person is age 17 or under, contact information for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children shall be given. If the missing person is age 18 or older, contact information for the National Center for Missing Adults shall be given.
I cannot begin to tell you how often this does not occur, leaving families not knowing where to turn to receive much needed assistance. Utilizing LE is only one piece of the puzzle. Families need the resources, support, and awareness these agencies provide.
In respect to missing persons who are deceased and then identified:
Agencies handling the remains of a missing person who is now deceased must notify the LE agency handling the missing person's case. Documented efforts must be made to locate family members of the deceased person to inform them of the death and location of the remains of their family member.
continued on next page Project Jason Campaign for the Missing and Unidentified (http://yourmichigan.com/blog.php?b=25)
Click here to be taken to Mary's Blog... (http://YourMichigan.com/blog.php?b=24)
120 seconds = two minutes. In those two minutes, three children have gone missing. In other words, every 40 seconds, a child goes missing. And it's not just children abducted by strangers. It also includes children kidnapped by their non-custodial parent, and runaway children.
Did you sigh, hesitate, or cringe when you read "runaway children?" Do you believe runaway children shouldn't be included or posted as amber alerts? Most people do, including law enforcement, so, don't feel bad.
What's wrong with this is, law enforcement sometimes are too quick to label a child due to their age, past history, family history, who the childs friends are, and even mental capacity. And when that happens, a missing report doesn't get filed. Mom and/or Dad, or Legal Guardian are sent home feeling hopeless. Then the worry sets in. The worry of not knowing where their child is. Is she/he hungry? Are they warm enough? How will they survive without their medication?And so many other worries.
I'm not sayig ALL law enforcement agencies are guilty of ignoring runaway children. However, there are a lot out there that do.
On January 22, 1999, a mother went to the police station (in Phoenix, AZ), to report that her 17 year old daughter had gone missing. Because the daughter had run away the previous September, the police refused to file a missing report. They sent her home.
On Wednesday, August 20, 2008, a man went online to research unidentified bodies. He was looking for his sister. The 17 year old that had gone missing in 1999. And this wasn't his first time looking for her. He googled her stats (at the time she had gone missing), and the jewerly she was wearing. The very first link he clicked displayed a photo of a gal that strongly resembled his sister. It was a morgue photo.
Twenty four hours later, after emails, phone calls, dental comparision, jewerly identification, the unidentified gal had a name, Tawni Lee Mazzone.
While it's great the gal was finally identified, it's sad that it took 9 years and two days short of seven months for it to happen! You see, on January 26, 1999, Tawni was pushed out of a car that was traveling 75 mph on a Phoenix highway. She was in a coma for 24 hours, then passed away. She died five days AFTER her Mother had tried to report her missing! So for 9 years and almost seven months, Tawni laid in the morgue waiting to be identified!
What makes matters worse is, Tawni isn't the only one. There's thousands of unidenfied bodies here in the United States. Thousands! Babies, children, teenagers, and adults. All ages. All races. All sizes.
Tawni's story hits real close to home for me, and hundreds of other volunteers. For two years I looked at her mogue photo's every single day. I had it on my myspace page (http://yourmichigan.com/www.myspace.com/myawarenessgroup), along with all her stats, when and where she was found. (I've since replaced the photo with what she looked like when she was alive).
For two years many young girls were compared to Tawni's morgue photo. And when there were times we were certain we found a match, we submitted the information to the Maricopa Coroners Office. However, the dna didn't match each time. We never would have been able to come up with a match for Tawni's missing report was never filed.
Too bad back in 99 there wasn't the federal law that all missing child cases must be accepted. That should not happen today. Laws have changed somewhat since. Unfortunately, because unidentified bodies are not often properly processed AND missing person cases of ALL ages do not have all their data entered into the appropriate databases, we are faced with the crisis of 40,000+ unidentified bodies.
We can do something about this. Write to your congresspersons, state representative, governors, and law enforcement agencies.
The following is a copy and paste from another forum I'm on. It was written by Kelly Jolkowski, mother of a missing son (since June 13, 2001), Jason.
Quote:
Campaign for the missing and unidentified
What do I need to do?
The campaign seeks persons in each state who are willing to write to their own district's elected official to ask for sponsorship. This is more than a letter writing campaign. Please read all of the information presented before making your committment.
These are the basic steps involved:
1) If you are interested in helping make a difference in the lives of thousands of missing persons and their families, send an email to campaignforthemissing@projectjason.org (campaignforthemissing@projectjason.org) Give us your name and the state in which you live.
2) Look up the name and contact information for your state senator. This is the official who works with state law rather than federal. You may look up your representative here http://www.ncsl.org/public/leglinks.cfm (http://www.ncsl.org/public/leglinks.cfm)
3) Send either via email or US mail the prepared letter you will find at the end of this posting to that representative. You are asking them to sponsor this bill and to present it to the senate.
4) If you get a negative response, write to other senators until sponsorship is obtained. (My hope is that there will be more than one volunteer in each state, so that no one is working on it alone.)
The following is a simplified version of how the process flows in Nebraska. This may vary slightly state to state. The senator's aides in your state will be very willing to explain the process to you.
When a senator agrees to sponsor the bill, they will need to have their legislative aides research to ensure that nothing in the model will supersede current state law. If there are sections of the model already in place, those sections can be removed. A determination of fiscal (financial) impact may be prepared by the aides or other state employees.
Important Note about Fiscal Impact:
It is imperative that you submit the letter from the DNA Lab (http://www.projectjason.org/downloads/CampaignDNALetter.pdf) in TX (CHI) to your senator(s) and make sure they understand that CHI will bear the burden of the cost of DNA processing. A link to this letter is on the Pertinent Files thread. If you do not make this clear, your state will include DNA processing in their fiscal impact statement and potentially end up killing the bill for lack of funding to pay for DNA processing. CHI does it for free and is a government sanctioned lab.
When we find multiple senators to sponsor the bill in a single state, we can inform them who the original sponsor is, so that their offices can work together to research before the model goes to the writers. Any changes made are then presented to the campaign helpers in each state for approval. We will also help with this. Be sure to get sponsorship from persons in both the house and the senate.
The model and additions/corrections/deletions is forwarded to the state's bill writers. Each state has certain language/formats that bills are written in. After the bill is written, another check should take place to ensure there are no errors.
The bill is now scheduled to be introduced to the legislature. It is assigned a number. After presentation, the bill is forwarded to a committee. After that point, a public hearing is scheduled.
At the hearing, interested citizens are invited to testify before the committee members. In NE, you can speak for up to 5 minutes. There may be persons or groups present who are testifying against the bill. The committee can opt to ask the citizens who testify questions about the bill. If you volunteer to assist with the campaign, you are not required to testify. We will be able to assist in locating families of the missing and representatives of organizations who are willing to do this.
After the hearing, the committee can "kill" the bill, take no action, or pass it out of committee to be debated upon by all of the senators at a later date.
Once passed out of the committee, the bill is debated twice, and if passed, will go to the governor. He/She can either sign it or veto it. (This may very slightly by state.)
Assuming success, you now have a law! (The law does not take effect upon signing.)
There are two additions I wish to see in this bill.
The additions I wish to add include: (Project Jason Amendments)
The law enforcement agency, upon acceptance of a missing persons report, shall inform the reporting citizen of one of two resources, based upon the age of the missing person. If the missing person is age 17 or under, contact information for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children shall be given. If the missing person is age 18 or older, contact information for the National Center for Missing Adults shall be given.
I cannot begin to tell you how often this does not occur, leaving families not knowing where to turn to receive much needed assistance. Utilizing LE is only one piece of the puzzle. Families need the resources, support, and awareness these agencies provide.
In respect to missing persons who are deceased and then identified:
Agencies handling the remains of a missing person who is now deceased must notify the LE agency handling the missing person's case. Documented efforts must be made to locate family members of the deceased person to inform them of the death and location of the remains of their family member.
continued on next page Project Jason Campaign for the Missing and Unidentified (http://yourmichigan.com/blog.php?b=25)
Click here to be taken to Mary's Blog... (http://YourMichigan.com/blog.php?b=24)