Purportedly, there have been over a thousand reported missing children in northern Ohio this year.
According to the Ohio attorney general’s webpage for missing children, 45 children have gone missing in the Cleveland area this month. In August alone, almost 35 cases of children going missing were documented.
As many as 30 children went missing in the first two weeks of May.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has warned that the actual number may be in question due to reporting mistakes. Additionally, local law enforcement speculated that some individuals may be chronic juvenile delinquents.
Yost has stated that the state’s lack of police officers can lead to misleading statistics about cases of runaways, abductions, and sex trafficking. He said that the state is collaborating with the University of Toledo to create a more advanced statewide data-gathering reporting system to aid in the search for these missing youngsters.
Newburgh Heights Police Chief John Majoy speculated that most missing children were runaways rather than being abducted. However, he warned that children may not recognize the threat posed by adults who appear benign.
On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost told reporters, “Yes, of course, we are worried about it.”
The difficulties in describing these phenomena are “localized” and “again a result of local factors,” as Yost put it. Even though “we do our utmost to encourage compliance and increase support to remove barriers,” the success of these efforts ultimately depends on local partners over which we have no say.
Majoy told Fox News Digital in early June that the number of missing children in the area was unlike anything he had seen in his 33-year career.
On Saturday, members of the Cleveland Missing organization went out to Slavic Village in Ohio to look for Keshaun Williams, a 15-year-old who has been missing for almost 90 days.
Williams was last seen at a house party in Cleveland on June 17.
