More than 2,000 children are reported missing every day in
the U.S., an annual estimate of more than 750,000 minors. About 200,000 are abducted
by family members. Of the 58,000 abducted by strangers, 115 children are murdered,
held for ransom, or held hostage with an intent to keep. The disappearance of
Etan Patz, a six-year old student who vanished between his New York home and
the one-block walk to the school bus stop in 1979, prompted President Ronald
Regan four years later to proclaim May 25 as National Missing Children’s Day. The
following year, congress designated the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a nonprofit organization, as the main source of
information.
Fast forward more than a quarter-century to March 16, 2012. Sierra
LaMar, 15, disappeared on her way to a rural school bus stop in Morgan Hill,
California. A tip about a red Volkswagen Jetta with black hood and Sierra's clothes in a Juicy Couture bag sparked the arrest of Antolin
Garcia-Torres two months later. Volunteers still search for Sierra.
On the eve of National Missing Children’s Day, May 24, 2012,
Pedro Hernandez, a former Manhattan stock clerk who
once lived in the same neighborhood as Etan Patz, confessed and was arrested.
In all the positive results from Ethan’s disappearance, from
his face on milk cartons to a 24-hour toll free number to report missing
children, to an arrest more than three decades after he went missing, one vital
deterrent remains untouched—unsupervised bus stops. If parents or neighbors had
formed a volunteer watch group to watch for Etan Patz, he might have been found. If Sierra LaMar’s bus stop had a monitor, her morning absence would have been questioned and an amber alert issued. The
red Volkswagen Jetta with a black hood would have been traced sooner. Volunteers wouldn't be searching for her today.
We cannot turn back the clock, but we can change the future.
