Runaway or something else?

Carole Moore
Missing Persons Contributor
Officer.com

How do police know the score? In Memphis, police officials are taking heat for not placing a missing teenager on its City Watch list until it was too late to save her life. Jaliesa Dickerson, a 16-year-old and the mother of a three-month old infant, vanished while walking to her high school. Five days later Dickerson’s body was found in a ravine not too far from her home. The family says the police erred by not classifying Dickerson’s disappearance as endangered right from the beginning. Police did eventually upgrade her, and they pointed out that they deal with hundreds upon hundreds of runaways each year. I can understand the deep dissatisfaction the dead girl’s family has with the police response, but police agencies do not have unlimited resources. Often they have to pursue cases where the evidence is clear that a disappearance was not voluntary, or the person who is missing is in danger, but this was not one of them. While the teen’s death is certainly a tragedy, what department has enough personnel to treat every missing person as a priority? Taxpayers must be willing to pay for more police officers if they want better services. Memphis Police officials admit they could have done a better job, but it’s hard for police – already stretched thin as it is – to devote hours and hours searching for a missing teen when runaways are so common. There is a partial solution, though. Absent any evidence that the family is culpable in a teen’s disappearance, provide them with access to any information turned up by a police investigation. While this won’t always drive an investigation in the right direction, at least the family won’t feel so alone and in the dark. Your thoughts? Michelle Harley vanished nearly 20 years ago. Someone, somewhere, knows something about her and where she is. There’s a photo and description of her here: http://sheriff.org/apps/missingpersons/details.cfm?casenumber=OP890716998