Latricia Hartley, a Black mother from San Francisco, pleaded with local police to send out an Amber Alert and, later, an Ebony Alert when her 14-year-old daughter went missing on April 4, but her cries fell on deaf ears.
According to the San Francisco Standard, despite Hartley notifying authorities of her teenage daughter’s history of mental illness which included suicidal ideation — and despite evidence that she had been “lured by a 16-year-old boy with predatory impulses,” and who also threatened to kill his parents, members of the San Francisco Police Department did nothing to help find her daughter. Hartley’s daughter is Black. The 16-year-old believed to have lured her away is white.
“I let them know that my daughter’s life was in danger,” the Bayview-Hunter’s Point resident said.
Ultimately, Hartley was notified that an investigation into her daughter’s disappearance could not be launched because her child was considered a runway. According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s website, Amber Alerts are only issued when law enforcement has a reasonable belief that an abduction has taken place and that the abducted child is in imminent danger of serious bodily harm or death. They were not concerned that Hartley’s daughter had what her mother referred to as “special needs.”
An Ebony Alert Wasn’t Sent Out
In February, California introduced the Ebony Alert system aimed at locating missing Black women and girls aged between 12 and 25 years old. The alert can be initiated if a missing individual is suffering from a mental or physical disability or if the individual’s physical safety is at risk. In a last-ditch attempt, the frustrated mother asked authorities to issue an Ebony Alert. But that plea was also disregarded. By law, Hartley’s daughter’s mental health struggle should have warranted the issuance of the Ebony alert. But the San Francisco Police Department later said it wasn’t sent out because…
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