A first-of-its-kind statewide call brought a once-missing teen home safely this week — just a few days after the new law that made it possible took effect.
The California Highway Patrol issued the state’s first Ebony Alert on Thursday, Jan. 4, for a missing 17-year-old girl who had last been seen on Dec. 30 at Broadway and West Florence Avenue in Los Angeles. The Long Beach Police Department requested the alert on Thursday.
A Long Beach police detective found the teen unharmed on Friday morning, Jan. 5, and helped her return home safely, said LBPD spokesperson Richard Mejia.
The emergency alert is similar to Amber, Silver and other such alerts, but with the focus on searching for and safely returning missing Black children and youth ages 12 to 25. a
A state law to create the Ebony Alert system went into effect on Sunday, Jan. 1.
Steven Bradford, D-Gardena, wrote the bill last year, with the intent to amplify missing people who are part of a demographic that has been historically misrepresented and forgotten when it comes to bringing them back to safety.
How quickly the tool was used after being implemented shows how necessary it is, Bradford said in a Friday statement.
“This is exactly the reason I authored this law; I appreciate that law enforcement is already utilizing this new notification tool that became law on Jan. 1,” Bradford said in the statement. “Black children and young women go missing at disproportionately higher rates but do not receive the same level of attention as others who go missing.”
Mejia, for his part, said the speed of the teen’s return is a testament to how the regional community comes together to solve things like this.
People, he said, are paying attention to these various alerts.
The alerts help quickly get information out to the public through highway signs, cell phone alerts and social media, Bradford said.
Like Amber Alerts, the CHP can send Ebony Alerts via wireless emergency messages to all cell phones in…
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