The Congressional Black Caucus is calling on Attorney General Jeff
Sessions and the FBI to help in the search for missing black girls in
the Washington, D.C., area, following an alarming string of missing
children cases from the nation's capital.
The District of Columbia logged 501 cases of missing
juveniles, many of them black or Latino, in the first three months of
this year, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, the city's
police force. Twenty-two were unsolved as of March 22, police said.
The letter, dated Tuesday and obtained Thursday by
The Associated Press, was sent by Congressional Black Caucus chairman
Cedric Richmond, D-La., and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents
the District in Congress.
They called on Sessions and FBI Director James Comey to "devote the
resources necessary to determine whether these developments are an
anomaly or whether they are indicative of an underlying trend that must
be addressed."
According to reports, the names of the missing girls
include: Yahshaiyah Enoch and Aniya McNeil, both 13; Juliana
Otero, Jacqueline Lassey, Dashann Trikia Wallace, Dayana
White and Morgan Richardson, all 15; and Talisha Coles, 16.
Richmond said he hopes to meet with Sessions and bring up the issue. No meeting is currently scheduled, according to the AP.
But President Donald Trump assured caucus members on Wednesday that he would make his Cabinet secretaries available to them.
D.C. police officials, meanwhile, said there has been no increase in the numbers of missing persons in their jurisdiction.
"We've just been posting them on social media more often," said Metropolitan Police spokeswoman Rachel Reid.
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