GREAT FALLS — A social media post highlighting missing children from the Great Falls area is gaining statewide attention, prompting the Great Falls Police Department to explain how it handles missing persons cases.
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The post featured a screenshot from the Montana Department of Justice website showing eight children reported missing since July 31st. In a follow-up post on social media, GFPD said as of Thursday, Aug. 20, only two children from Great Falls remain missing.
Great Falls Police Capt. Brian Black said the number of missing children fluctuates regularly.
"The amount of missing kids is an ebb and flow. It changes all the time," Black said.
Black said all eight children shown in the viral post were classified as runaways.
"They were all runaways, but none of them were reaching endangerment where we would have changed the status or looked at MEPA (Missing Endangered Person Advisory) or looked at an Amber alert," Black said.
When a runaway is reported, Black said the case is entered into the National Crime Information Center and then into the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children database. In most cases, he said, police do not have information from the investigation to indicate the child is in danger.
If investigators do believe a child is in danger, Black said they will work with the Montana Department of Justice to determine whether the case merits a Missing and Endangered Person Advisory. In child abduction cases where a child's life is believed to be in danger, an AMBER Alert may be issued.
Black said GFPD does not share information about runaways in most cases because doing so can hinder the investigation and make it more difficult to quickly resolve the situation. However, police will share information if they believe a child's life is at risk.
Despite the varying classifications, Black said every missing child case receives attention and follow-through.
"We don't give up. We're constantly working on them, whether it's at the patrol level and the patrol officer is actively following up on it, or if it falls into investigations. And we've got detectives that are following up on it or SROs that are following up on it, but they're all taken seriously. They're all investigated. None of them just get put on a shelf," Black said.
