An Ohio police chief has expressed concern over the alarmingly high number of missing children in Cleveland.
According to John Majoy, chief of police for Newburgh Heights, a suburb about five miles south of Cleveland, as many as 27 children were reported missing in the area in just two weeks in early May.
Majoy, who also serves as president of the Cleveland Missing organization, called the year “extraordinary” in terms of the unprecedented number of reported missing children.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Majoy said the number of missing children between the ages of 12 and 17 remained unusually high during the month of May.
“For some reason we’ve seen a lot more in 2023 than we normally see, which is disturbing in part because we don’t know what’s going on with some of these kids, whether they’re being trafficked or whether they’re involved in gang activity or drugs,” he told the outlet.
Newburgh Heights Police Chief John Majoy has raised the alarm about a trend of missing children in the Cleveland area
Caleb Ellis, 16, ran away from his home with two other teenagers on April 6, police said (left). Malikah Nelson, 15, was last seen in Cleveland on April 9 (right)
As of mid-May, there were a total of 56 active cases of missing children in Cleveland, meaning nearly half of the cases were reported in May.
Majoy stressed that he has never seen such a high number of missing children in his 33-year career.
While Majoy claimed that most cases are likely to be runaways and not kidnappings, he added that teens are naive when it comes to predators, which he could be “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
The 27 missing children were reported between May 2 and May 16.
And sadly, most missing children don’t make the news because there’s usually no Amber Alert, said Majoy, who described the cases as “silent crimes happening right under our noses.”
There are strict criteria for an Amber Alert: the police must have a reasonable belief that there has been an abduction and that the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily harm or death.
There must also be sufficient descriptive information about the victim and the abduction.
Payton Gordon, 16, was last seen in August 2022 in Cleveland (left). Amida Evans, 13, reportedly ran away from his Cleveland home on May 8
Milkeno Ward, 16, was last seen in August 2022 and is believed to have run away from home (left). Jevonte Jones, 16, was reported missing on April 27 (right)
‘The problem is where are they? Where are they going? They can be in a drugstore or driven into prostitution or entangled in drug dealing or gangs.’
Finding the missing children is even more difficult when you consider that most of the cases listed on the website for missing Cleveland children do not include a photo.
More than 15,000 children were reported in Ohio last year, four of whom were found dead.
Kidnappings accounted for 8,525 of the cases, with 34 cases resulting from abductions by a non-custodial parent.
Only five of the children were abducted by a stranger, according to a report by state attorney general Dave Yost.
Police were able to find 36 percent of the children, but 615 still went missing in 2023.
DailyMail.com has reached out to the Cleveland Police Department’s Missing Persons Unit for comment on this story.