A California lawmaker introduced into the California Senate last month aimed at developing a system for missing Black young adults and adolescents.
Sen. Steven Bradford introduced Senate Bill 673 to create the “Ebony Alert” system. Like the “Amber Alert” system, the Ebony Alert would “ensure that resources and attention are given so we can bring home missing Black women and Black children in the same way we would search for any missing child and missing person,” said Bradford.
Nearly 40% of missing persons are persons of color, yet African-Americans comprise only 13% of the population. A recent report released by the Los Angeles Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department found that, although Black women make up only 4.3% of the population in Los Angeles, they make up about 25% to 33% of the cases of violence in the city. When it came to missing person cases, Black women accounted for approximately 28% of these cases.
SB 673 would prompt news organizations, including television, cable, online, radio and social media outlets, to help disseminate the information in an Ebony Alert with urgency.
“When someone who is missing is incorrectly listed as a runaway, they basically vanish a second time,” Bradford said in a news release. “They vanish from the police detectives’ workload. They vanish from the headlines. In many ways, no one even knows they are missing.”
Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law the creation of the “Feather Alert” system specifically designed to find Indigenous people reported missing.
