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Families of Missing Persons Need Your Help Now: Support HR 3695!
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by Delilah | October 20, 2009 at 11:21 am
265 views | 26 Recommendations | 5 comments
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HR 3695, also known as The Help Find the Missing Act (Billy's Law) is now before the House of Representatives. Our country is in dire need of uniform reporting of missing persons, no matter who they are, in order to expedite investigations and identifications.
It is no longer a rare occasion in which one may become a missing statistic, rather it happens more often than we would like. The growing number of citizens with Alzheimer's and other cognitive disabilities also has shown a tremendous increase in missing loved ones, which also includes those with other cognitive disorders such as autism.
Congressional support and sponsorship is desperately needed. We feel if we do not gain support the bill will just die off. This bill is very necessary. We only want to have the gaps closed that will enable families of missing to have one source to be able to search for their loved ones.
Filling in the Gaps of the Nation’s Missing Persons Systems
Endorsed By: Connecticut Department of Public Safety, National Forensic Science Technology Center, National Center for Forensic Science, Doe Missing Persons Network, Center for Hope, Families of Homicide Victims and Missing Persons, Inc.
Sponsored by Representatives Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Ted Poe (R-TX)
This legislation is named after Billy Smolinski of Waterbury, Connecticut who went missing on August 24, 2004 at the age of 31. Billy’s family knows all-too-well the systemic challenges in trying to find the missing. They quickly learned that while federal law mandates law enforcement report missing children, there are no such requirements for adults – or unidentified bodies.
Compounding this problem is the fact that local law enforcement agencies, medical examiners, and coroners, often don’t have the resources or training to voluntarily report these cases.
Finally, even when missing adults and remains are reported, the wide-range of unconnected federal, state, local, and non-profit databases to help match the missing with unidentified bodies, makes finding a match an often insurmountable challenge.
Please make a point to contact your US Representatives today and ask them to support this bill, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity to do something very positive for families of missing persons.
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Delilah
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, United States
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Recommendations (26)
Rhonda J Mangus
North Tonawanda, New York, United States
Albert Milliron
Columbia, South Carolina, United Statesa211423
Clearlake, California, United States
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (5)
at 12:29 on October 20th, 2009
This bill would help also locate adults with many types mental illness who disappear.
Thank you for this article.
at 16:45 on October 20th, 2009
Nice to see a good writer from SC
at 16:55 on October 20th, 2009
Thank you!
at 16:54 on October 20th, 2009
The thing most don't realize is the process (or lack of) when someone goes missing, especially an adult, and even more so, an adult male who is the lowest priority. There are so many factors involved that it's mind boggling. Each family is literally left to work their own investigations after a certain point.
This law (Billy's Law) would level the playing field and make sure that there are standarized procedures to be followed for each person reported missing. The data bases are ever so important, but if a case is not entered in a timely fashion, precious time is wasted and trails go cold.
Please contact your own legislators and beg them for support and sponsorship. It's going to take ALL of us or this bill will die where it is and three years of a mother's life will be for naught. Her son is still missing, yet she has the stamina to stand up for all other mothers with missing children. Every missing person is someone's child.
at 20:03 on October 20th, 2009
This is legislation that needs to be passed but we need everyone doing their part. It's one thing to follow or sit around and discuss a missing person case but if you really would like to do something for the missing and their families WRITE TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVES and ask them to support and/or co-sponsor this legislation!!! One of the easiest ways to contact your representatives is through the following link: www.congress.org It pulls up all of your representatives and gives you a very easy way to contact them. My spouse was missing for 4 years so I know what it is like to come home after working 12+ hours a day and then sit on a computer and search the internet until the wee hours of the morning looking at dead bodies and/or descriptions of unidentifieds. Because every jurisdiction appears to be off doing their own thing there was no one central location to search. And, to make it even more difficult not all list their unidentifieds or input them into any central database. I talked with law enforcement, coroners, etc., all over the country in the hopes of locating my husband but the shear reality of thee search was overwhelming, so many rocks to overturn and search under. The Department of Justice has given us a wonderful tool in NamUs.gov where both the data on unidentifieds and the missing can be gathered and searched through. But, as great as this tool is and no matter how much the families of the missing wanted this tool it is only as good as what is input into it. The DOJ did a good thing but if Law Enforcement, Medical Examiners, Coroners, etc., are not mandated to use NamUs then the families of the missing have to continue to search for their loved ones in a search that is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. And, if rules are not laid out nationally giving direction to law enforcement as when to begin a search, when to take a missing person report and when to enter it into ONE database the families will be forever left on their own to search and conduct their own investigations. Over 100,000+ missing and over 40,000+ unidentifieds how would you feel if your loved one was one of those numbers? What would you do when you find out this isn't CSI, this isn't TV, no one rushes to your side to help you? What would you do when you find out you have to find your loved one yourself? Wouldn't you want this law in place? Would you really want to go through what I and 100,000+ other families have or are going through? Write to your representatives.......PLEASE! Thanks!