The California Statewide Ebony Alert Program “is a resource available to law enforcement agencies investigating the suspicious or unexplainable disappearance of a Black woman or Black persons.” As of July 26, 2024, only 28 Ebony Alerts have been issued since becoming law in January, per local news outlet KCRA 3.
Sen. Steven Bradford who authored the law, says that “14 people have been brought back home as a result of the alerts.” However, the case of Latricia Hartley’s missing daughter highlights the limitations of the Ebony Alert system and how bias can lead to misclassification of a missing minority child as a runaway, creating a legal loophole.
After Latricia Hartley’s 14-year-old daughter went missing on April 4, she sought the help of police. But she said the San Francisco Police Department wouldn’t help or issue an Amber or Ebony Alert, so she started investigating. Three days later, the cops arrested Hartley.
Hartley’s case isn’t an anomaly. Berry Accius has been trying for two to get authorities to issue an Ebony Alert on behalf of another missing 14-year-old Californian—Kamara Green. She has been missing since May 14, and Green’s mother has been worried and frustrated by the lack of answers.
Like Hartley’s daughter, Green was at first classified as not meeting the criteria for an Ebony Alert, and it wasn’t until July 30 that one was finally issued after Green had been missing for over two months. Sen. Bradford called this “a breakdown in the system.”
This breakdown becomes evident, considering that Hartley said when she informed the police about her daughter’s disappearance, she provided a wealth of information that could have spurred an investigation. “She told them about the girl’s mental illness, suicidal thoughts, and social naiveté. She told them why she had reason to believe she was lured from home by a 16-year-old boy with a predatory impulse and a history of self-harm who expressed a desire to kill his parents. She told them about the troubling note the girl left, saying that by the time anyone found them, it would be too late,” The San Francisco Standard reported.
There are clear racial disparities when it comes to missing persons in America. According to the Black and Missing Foundation, when minority children go missing, they “are initially classified as runaways, and as a result do not receive the Amber Alert,” as was the case with Hartley’s daughter. Additionally, they receive less news coverage compared to their white counterparts.
“I know my daughter, and I told them I knew she was at risk,” stated Hartley. “That should have been enough. Instead, it’s like, my daughter’s life was in danger, and y’all didn’t care.”
Because the 14-year-old was classified as a runaway, they couldn’t issue an Amber Alert. Ebony Alerts were supposed to be a viable solution for this gap and “provide immediate information to the public to aid in the swift recovery of missing black persons.” One can be issued if they believe “that the person is in danger because of age, health, mental or physical disability, or environment or weather conditions, that the person is in the company of a potentially dangerous person, or that there are other factors indicating that the person may be in peril.”
After the police failed to take any action or even release an Ebony Alert for Hartley’s missing daughter, Hartley struck out on her own. She called hospitals, sought help from her daughter’s school, organized a neighborhood search and posted on social media. Three days after her first report, Hartley received a lead about a house in East Bay. She again turned to the police for help who did go out to the house that morning. But the deputies did not find her daughter upon their first search of the home.
Distrusting the police’s efforts, Hartley decided to go check the area out that afternoon. Along with Bayview violence prevention worker Raymond Whitley, she went to the home where she believed her daughter was being held “and frantically banged on the door, demanding to see her daughter.” This was when the police arrived and arrested Hartley and Whitley on felony burglary and child abuse charges after receiving a 911 call from a white boy “about what he described as three Black men with a gun trying to break in.”
Fortunately, this time, the police finally find Hartley’s daughter “hiding under a bed, where she’d been when deputies searched the house earlier that morning.”
Both Hartley and Whitley’s felony charges “were downgraded to misdemeanors,” but they are still fighting to have them dropped. While Hartley is thankful to have her daughter back, she is still upset about the lack of help from law enforcement. “I let them know that my daughter’s life was in danger,” she said.
