Missing Children Task Force tries to locate runaways - CO USA

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Julie Hayden - Investigative Reporter KDVR Denver
10:22 PM MDT, June 23, 2010

DENVER - The numbers are shocking: nearly 12,000 children are reported missing each year in Colorado.

Shallon Caldwell, with the Missing Children Task Force said May of 2009 was a typical month. More than 1200 kids were reported missing. Of those, 945 were runaways. Another 279 were children were got lost or came home late. There was one non custodial parental kidnapping, but no stranger kidnappings.

Caldwell said that just because a child is a runaway does not mean they are not in danger. "They're in a lot more danger than people realize when they're on the streets," she said.

The latest child to be added to Colorado's Missing and Exploited Children website is 13-year-old Dana Ortiz. Her mother said the teen was depressed and suffered from anxiety.

When Dana recently became suicidal, they voluntarily signed her into a group home, through Denver's Child Protection Services, but she says Dana ran away June 15 with an older teen from the home.

Dana's mother is worried that, without her medication, Dana may try to commit suicide.

"All I know is I want my little girl back," she said. "I love her and want her to come home."

She said Dana has run away before, but never for this long and never without contacting her friends. But this time, it's been nearly two weeks and there's been no sign of her daughter.

"I go out and look for her at the 16th Street Mall, I walk around, I go to the skate park where kids hang out." she said through tears adding, "Wherever she's at, I'm hoping she makes her way home."

Caldwell says there are not enough resources to provide the kind of help the children and their families need.

The Missing Children Task Force is holding fund raisers this weekend. There is a motorcycle poker ride followed by a race at the Colorado National Speedway Saturday night, and on Sunday, a friendly competition between police and firefighters called "Guns and Hoses" at Infinity Park in Glendale.

For more information you can go to:

http://www.childfinders.org

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LAST UPDATED: June 24, 2010
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