YPD turns to social media to find missing teens

By JOE GORMAN

jgorman@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The police department’s Crisis Intervention/ Juvenile Unit is now on social media to help find missing teens.

Lt. Brian Flynn, who heads the Family Services Intervention Unit, which oversees the juvenile unit, said the idea came from officer Hannah Short, who is in charge of missing persons and runaway cases.

Flynn said he liked the idea because of Short’s theory that young people are heavy users of social media and they can see their own case, or one of their friends can see it, and let police know their whereabouts.

“It kind of made sense to me,” Flynn said. “It just seemed logical to put something up the younger population can see.”

Short said she got the idea after the department’s social worker, who helped with runaway cases, retired earlier this year. The state Attorney General’s Office prints fliers of missing people, including juveniles, and Short said she thought it would be a good idea to place those fliers someplace where young people could see them.

She said Facebook is perfect for that because just about every teen is on

Facebook.

Most of the city’s juvenile runaways or missing persons come from the group homes in the city that often house juveniles from other jurisdictions, Short said. She said the Facebook page is a good way to get attention out on their cases in areas outside the city.

“It’s [Facebook page] getting that information out there to other counties and jurisdictions,” Short said.

Short said the page was created Feb. 7, and within a week she cleared one case and had information on a second case thanks to the page. She said she was surprised to see results that quickly.

Chief Robin Lees lauded the thinking of Short to do something out of the ordinary to drum up attention for runaways and missing juveniles.

“We try to progress with the technology, and this looks like it will pay dividends,” Lees said.

To look for the page on Facebook, search for Youngstown Police Department: Crisis Intervention/Juvenile Unit. As of Monday morning, the page had 468 likes.