By: Dennis Richmond, Jr.
Over the weekend, on Sunday September 20, 2026, I wrote about dozens of Black teen girls listed as missing across New York. Yonkers Voice broke my story digitally first, and I did not allow it to end there. I shared it through Mount Vernon Newswire and across my social media platforms, from Facebook and Instagram to Threads and TikTok. I wanted people to see this story. Most importantly, I wanted people to care enough to share their faces with somebody else.
After thousands of reactions, the mother of Jayleen Lashley, a 15-year-old from North Babylon who had been reported missing on September 15, reached out to me personally. Her daughter had been found.
“Hello can you please… declare my daughter found…
Cover her face please.”
The photograph I had shared of Jayleen was no longer simply the face of a missing teenager. She was somebody’s daughter who was coming home. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children even took the poster down. But Jayleen being found does not erase the other faces.
When I shared this story, I highlighted several girls, including Nahsia Simmons of Mount Vernon, London Johnson-Barrett of Far Rockaway and Journey Spann of the Bronx. Behind every poster are people wondering where this teen is sleeping, whether she is eating, whether she is safe and whether somebody has seen her without realizing that people are searching for her.
The numbers make this conversation even harder to ignore. According to the New York State Missing Persons Clearinghouse, 12,114 children were reported missing statewide in 2024. Nearly 60 percent were female, 55.8 percent were non-white and 91.2 percent were at least 13 years old. Black girls between 13 and 15 represented 17.9 percent of all missing-child cases, making them the largest single demographic group in the state’s 2024 data.
The problem did not disappear in 2025. New York State reported that 10,629 children under 18 were reported missing to police that year, with 1,079 missing-child cases still active at year’s end. The state says 94 percent of those reports involved children classified as runaways. That word can make a case sound less urgent than it is. It should not. Children away from home can still face exploitation, violence and other dangers, which is why every missing child deserves attention regardless of how a case is classified.
One of our New York mothers got to say, “My daughter was found.” Every family still searching deserves the opportunity to say the same. Wouldn’t you agree?
Dennis Richmond, Jr. (@NewYorkStakz) is a journalist, historian, and educator from Yonkers, NY. He writes to uplift unheard voices, honor history, and inspire change.