The Florida Department of Law Enforcement sought the opinions of students in an attempt to educate the public about kidnappings.
“Snatch! Another innocent child is abducted. About 20,000 children go missing in Florida each year,” wrote Davis, a fifth-grade student at Sallie Jones Elementary in Punta Gorda, in an essay.
The student’s winning entry for the Florida Missing Children’s Day contest really began with the intimidating descriptor. The purpose of the contest is to provide educators, parents, and kids with a platform to discuss “stranger danger” and safe measures to avoid kidnappings.
The FDLE and its foundation sponsored the 26th annual Florida Missing Children’s Day ceremony on Monday. At the Tallahassee Automobile Museum, more than a hundred people came together to honour state workers and partners who assist in child protection, pay tribute to missing children, and raise awareness of safety and abduction prevention.
FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass stated, “We remember the children whose lives have been taken, and we also remember those who are still missing.” To honour and commemorate their lost and missing loved ones, he personally shook hands and gave hugs to sixteen families.
Although they were not present, Governor Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey stated in a statement that they were unable to “imagine the agony and desperation experienced by families who are dealing with a missing child.”
According to the FDLE, in 2023 agencies from all across the state reported over 29,045 missing children to the Florida Crime Information Centre.
According to the Tallahassee Police Department, there are three open cases involving missing children in Tallahassee at the moment. There were 177 reports of missing children between January and June.
After the ceremony, hundreds of kids, including those from Renaissance Academy and Trinity Catholic School, attended a safety fair.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Florida Missing Endangered Persons Information Clearinghouse engages the public in the search for missing children and AMBER alerts to assist law enforcement agencies and individuals in finding missing persons.
