Michelle Knight removed by Cleveland police from FBI database 15 months after disappearance

[ellisonz]

By Leila Atassi, The Plain Dealer
on May 09, 2013 at 10:25 PM, updated May 09, 2013 at 10:47 PM

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland police removed Michelle Knight's missing person entry from an FBI database 15 months after she was reported missing in 2002 -- and nearly a decade before she was rescued from her captor's home on Cleveland's West Side.

City spokeswoman Maureen Harper said Thursday that police followed proper procedures by removing Knight's name from the database in November 2003 because they were unable to contact Knight's mother by telephone to verify that her then-22-year-old daughter still was missing.

However, the police department's written policy on investigating missing adults, at the time of Knight's disappearance on Aug. 23, 2002, describes a different verification process. It states that an officer must go and see that a missing person has been found, then inform the FBI within two hours for removal from the National Crime Information Center database.

Kym Pasqualini, a national advocate for missing adults, said in an interview Thursday that the removal of Knight's name and description from the database helped the case fall through the cracks.

More: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/05/michelle_knight_held_captive_f.html#incart_maj-story-2

[marshall]

1. Family is crucial in keeping these cases alive

I have no idea what happened to Knight's mother--whether she died or moved on or just didn't care. But these missing folks must have advocates to keep their cause alive.

[ellisonz]

2. Concurrently

Cleveland commander says those with missing loved ones should push police to stay on the hunt
By Tonya Sams, The Plain Dealer
on May 09, 2013 at 10:28 PM, updated May 10, 2013 at 7:23 AM

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland Police Commander Keith Sulzer, who was one of the officers assigned to the Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus case from the start, talked briefly about the initial search during a community meeting Thursday.

"We did an extensive job," he told about 150 people at the Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, located on the corner of Scranton Road and Seymour Avenue, a block away from where the women were rescued from the home of Ariel Castro Monday evening.

"Marked every street, every address," Sulzer said. "I had a recurring nightmare that the girls would be found at places where we had already searched. I personally busted my butt to find those girls."

Despite the joy and relief from the community that Berry, DeJesus and Michelle Knight were found alive, one resident told the panel of police that they were doing nothing to help find her missing sister, even stating that one officer in the Second District referred to her sister as a "crackhead. Just like my ex-wife."

More: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2013/05/state_county_city_officials_in.html#incart_maj-story-1#incart_maj-story-1

[Blue_Tires]

3. There was some other backstory posted in another thread

long story short, Knight came from a very abusive, messed-up family who basically treated her disappearance as a runaway and left her for dead, not caring about her fate...