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Roger Chiang supports Kristen Act

 
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 18, 2004 5:26 am    Post subject: Roger Chiang supports Kristen Act Reply with quote

from Detroit News (fair use)

Missing in America
System fails missing adults
Database may draw attention to their cases
By Greg Wright / Gannett News Service
July 22, 2002

WASHINGTON -- David Durant took what he probably thought would be a brief stroll on a crisp, clear day in October near his senior citizens residence in Zanesville, Ohio.
He never made it back to Abbot Home.
Police looked for Durant, 65, for days, peering into dank storm drains and searching local forests and rivers. But no trace of the quiet but friendly man who wore his gray hair parted on the side was found.
"That one will follow me until I retire," Detective Tim Collins said of the case.
A missing child strikes an emotional chord with the public and often gets lots of media attention. The tragic saga of Elizabeth Smart, 14, a pajama-clad Utah girl reportedly abducted at gunpoint in June from her bedroom, is an almost daily staple on television news.
But missing persons advocates, including John Walsh of Fox television's "America's Most Wanted," said police and media also should give more scrutiny to about 200,000 grown men and women who disappear each year.
Federal and state law and most local police department protocol call for immediate missing children investigations. But that is not the case with adults.
And most police departments, especially in rural areas, on average have just 10 officers, Walsh said. This often is not enough manpower to pursue missing adults such as Durant for long periods, he said.
"Here is the difficulty: As an adult, you have the right to be missing," said Peter Banks, training director at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va. "So, oftentimes, law enforcement is reluctant to put resources into a case where people may have left on their own."
More attention on missing adults could come soon, partly due to the 2001 disappearance of former federal intern Chandra Levy, 24, whose remains were found in May in a Washington park. Unlike most missing adult cases, Levy's received national attention because relatives said she was romantically involved with Rep. Gary Condit, D-Calif.



Clearinghouse is coming
In 1999, Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., and Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., succeeded in passing the Kristen Act, which creates a national data clearinghouse for missing adults. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which Walsh co-founded in 1984, already runs a similar clearinghouse for missing children and teens.
The Kristen Act was named for Kristen Modafferri, an 18-year-old North Carolina college student who disappeared in 1997 in San Francisco. Her desperate parents called the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children but learned Modafferri was just a few months too old to qualify.
"They were shocked to discover that because Kristen was 18, the center couldn't place her picture and story in its national database or offer any assistance," Myrick said.
On July 10, the Justice Department released $1.75 million to finance the Kristen Act. The bulk of this money -- a two-year, $1.58 million grant -- will go to the Nation's Missing Children Organization and Center for Missing Adults in Phoenix. The rest of the money will go to state efforts to find missing adults.
Besides setting up a computer database for national law enforcement agencies, the Nation's Missing Children Organization and Center for Missing Adults will offer local police consultants to help solve missing adult cases, Director Kym Pasqualini said.
The center now is hiring additional staff to handle the new workload. After the Levy case hit national news, Pasqualini said her agency was flooded with phone calls from families of missing adults.
Meanwhile, Walsh said his 15-year-old television program, which helped capture more than 700 fugitive criminals, will begin airing spotlights on missing adults. The program previously featured only missing children.

Alert systems needed
Radio and television also should broadcast instant emergency alerts when an adult is reported missing, Walsh said. Several states -- including Colorado, Michigan, New York and Texas -- already have so-called "Amber alerts" for missing children.
Those alerts were named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old Arlington, Texas, girl kidnapped and killed in 1996.
Kirk Watson, the Democratic nominee for Texas attorney general, is pushing for the "Amber alert" system to go statewide. Currently, the system is used in select cities in Texas and is credited with finding a dozen abducted children.
Roger Chiang, who works for the Democratic National Committee in Washington, said missing adults should receive more attention on television and the Internet.
"You can't address adult missing persons without the help of technology and television," he said.
Chiang's 29-year-old sister, Joyce Chiang, disappeared in January 1999 after friends dropped her off at a Starbucks in the District of Columbia.
Chiang claims police at first were slow to investigate the case. When he and friends passed out fliers about his sister, an Immigration and Naturalization Service lawyer, police on the beat in their Dupont Circle neighborhood said superiors never told them to be on alert for a missing woman.
A canoeist found Joyce Chiang's decomposed body floating in the Potomac River three months later. The cause of her death is undetermined, D.C. police spokesman Thomas McGuire said.
McGuire disputed Roger Chiang's claim that they gave the case little attention. Both city police and FBI agents launched a massive search for Joyce Chiang, he said.

840,000 go missing
More than 840,000 adults and juveniles were reported missing in the United States last year, compared to 876,213 in 2000, the FBI said. Almost 80 percent of these cases are runaway children and teen-agers, according to FBI data.
Many come home when they get hungry or cold or run out of money, missing persons experts said.
Launching a search quickly is crucial, no matter the person's age.
Almost 75 percent of kidnapped children are killed within three hours after abduction, according to the Washington State Attorney General's Office. Putting more attention on missing adult cases could help solve other crimes, particularly serial killings.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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