Police Posted Missing Teenagers Data on Social Media. A City Took Note.
'A new approach by the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington to use social media to raise awareness about teenagers reported missing did indeed gain attention — some of it unintentional.
Starting in January, the department changed the way it alerted the public about missing teenagers by posting their photographs, names and ages on Twitter. Previously, publicity about each case was discretionary. . .
In a letter on Tuesday, the Congressional Black Caucus called on the Justice Department and the F.B.I. to determine whether the disappearances were an anomaly or part of a larger trend.
“Ten children of color went missing in our nation’s capital in a period of two weeks, and, at first, garnered very little media attention,” the caucus wrote, calling it “deeply disturbing” and indicative of an assumption that those children had all run away and had not been abducted.
The police responded with statements, held a news conference this month and responded to people on Twitter. The posts on Twitter did not mean more people were going missing, said Margarita Mikhaylova, a spokeswoman.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/us/missing-teenagers-in-dc.html?
