Runaways foil DCF's statewide dragnet

As soon as they're found and returned home, most children run again, officials say.

©Associated Press
October 17, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- Strike-force teams scouring the state for missing children have located 194 of the 393 they set out to find since August, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement reported Wednesday.

But they are finding that the number of missing is a moving target.

The teams made up of representatives of the FDLE, the Department of Children and Families and local law enforcement were created Aug. 26 and directed to find the 393 children under DCF supervision who were determined to be missing.

As children have been found, however, others have disappeared and there is no count of the total now missing.

Most of those located were runaways.

But officials acknowledged that new runaways kept the total number of missing from dropping accordingly.

"It's etched in Jell-O," DCF spokesman Owen Roach said.

In some cases, children who were found have already run away again, Roach said.

"An hour or two later, the kid is out the back door again," Roach said.

Donna Uzzell, director of FDLE's Criminal Justice Information Program, said she knew of one child who had already run away again and suspected there were more.

"There are a group of kids that are chronically runaways," Uzzell said.

Of the 393 missing children, 339 were believed to be runaways, Uzzell said. The other 54 were considered endangered, meaning they needed medication or were taken by a parent or noncustodial adult.

Jack Levine, president of the Center for Florida's Children, agreed that most of the missing children were runaways, but said that did not mean they were not in danger.

Levine said he was afraid that when DCF said the children were runaways, there would be a presumption that they were safe.

In fact, many runaways become victims of molestation or even murder, he said.

"We should not just shrug our shoulders and assume they are out for an adventure or a joy ride," Levine said.

A body found in a Collier County canal in August was recently identified as that of Marissa Karp, a 17-year-old runaway who disappeared last April when under DCF supervision. The Collier County Sheriff's Office said she was murdered.

Levine said there are at any given time 30,000 to 40,000 preteen and teenage runaways in Florida and the state should be doing more to provide them shelter and services.

Instead, DCF has been threatening to cut services to runaways, Levine said.

The seven regional Child Location Strike Forces were established after Gov. Jeb Bush started Operation SafeKids in response to reports of difficulties in tracking children who were under DCF supervision.

The department has been under a microscope since it discovered in April that 5-year-old Rilya Wilson of Miami had been missing for 15 months. She has not been located.

Of the children located by the strike forces, 23 were considered endangered or were taken by a parent or noncustodial adult and 171 were runaways.

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