CLEVELAND — The U.S. Marshals service has announced a very promising start to its 'Operation Safety Net' program to locate and recover missing children from Northeast Ohio.
So far, 25 missing and endangered children have been recovered. The located children have been between the ages of 13 and 18. Children have been recovered in Cleveland, East Cleveland, Akron, Mansfield, Euclid, Willoughby and as far away as Miami.
Of these cases of missing children, about one fourth of them are confirmed to be related to human trafficking or prostitution.
The U.S. Marshals Service has been working with its state and local partners over the past 20 days to find missing children. United States Marshal Pete Elliott, Police Chief Calvin Williams, Sheriff David Schilling, East Cleveland Police Chief Scott Gardner, and Newburgh Heights Police Chief John Majoy made the joint announcement about the recovered children in a release sent out on Thursday.
US Marshals and their local partners say they will continue to work over the next several weeks to bring more children to safety and return them to safe places.
Tips about where these kids may be can be called into the U.S. Marshals tip line at 1-866-492-6833.
