Missing teens away from civil unrest
Girls spent 42 hours walking near Borchert Field in June, not at house set afire on Milwaukee’s west side
The two teenage girls who went missing for about 42 hours in late June — sparking a chain of events that led to a crowd of people setting fire to a house on Milwaukee’s west side — spent the bulk of that time walking around in Borchert Field, a neighborhood three miles away from the burned home.
And in an interview with police after being located, one of the girls said they never visited the house at North 40th and West Lloyd streets and had no idea where anyone got the idea they had, according to documents from the Milwaukee Police Department released to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel through an open records request.
The documents show the girls — cousins ages 13 and 15 — voluntarily walked away from family on the evening of June 21 and spent the next two evenings walking around and hanging out with friends, mostly in the area of Columbia Park in Borchert Field.
They were found by one of their mothers on the afternoon of June 23 in the same neighborhood, walking near the intersection of West Ring and North 9th streets.
But before they were found, a chaotic
series of events unfolded on the 2100 block of North 40th Street. There, on June 23, a group of people helping family search for the girls focused their attention — with little or no apparent evidence to do so — on a home they believed was housing the girls and other runaway children, possibly as part of a human trafficking operation.
Fueled by hearsay, rumors on social media and a lack of faith in police finding the girls, an agitated crowd grew in size until eventually people broke into the home aiming to find evidence of the missing children.
As police in riot gear clashed with crowd members, the house was set aflame, three people were shot and at least 11 officers and firefighters were injured from thrown bricks and other debris. Police also deployed less-lethal munitions, including tear gas.
At least seven people lived inside the house, a triplex, including a pregnant woman still in the hospital the day of the unrest after just giving birth, according to police documents and media interviews with two adult residents.
The Police Department documents released to the Journal Sentinel so far concentrate on the search for the missing girls and do not cover the civil unrest that unfolded outside the house. The department has declined to make those documents available, citing an open investigation.
The released documents do show that police suspected the missing 15year-old girl was the victim of a sexual assault during her 42-hour absence, but she and her mother repeatedly denied that was the case. They said that while the girls were missing, another boy made sexual advances toward one of the girls, but she rebuffed him and was not forced to do anything.
Timeline of girls’ whereabouts
According to Milwaukee police reports:
Around 5 p.m. June 21, one of the two girls got into a fight with her mother over “something petty,” she told police, and walked out of a home with her cousin on the 4300 block of North 26th Street, in the Garden Homes neighborhood.
One of the mothers reported the two girls missing about four hours later and did not provide police with information indicating they were in danger. That meant the two girls did not meet the Police Department’s criteria to use an Amber Alert or label them as “critically missing.”
That night, the girls spent time in a Walmart, walked to the lakefront and then walked to Columbia Park. There, one of them told police, they saw a friend who invited them to a nearby home at West Chambers Street and North 10th Lane, where they stayed until 11 p.m.
The two walked around some more until returning to Columbia Park, where they stayed overnight until 10 a.m. June 22, one of the girls told police. They then returned to the home at 10th and Chambers, where they stayed until June 23 watching TV.
Meanwhile, on June 22, one of the mothers and a group of people were out knocking door-to-door on the 2100 block of North 40th Street. Police were called to a house there shortly before 7 p.m. after a caller reported that six carloads of people were looking for someone and kicking at her door.
When officers showed up, the mother of one of the missing girls told police she heard runaway children stayed at the house on 40th Street. But a woman who lived at the house in question said juveniles hang out outside the house, but none stay over. She said her four teenage sons stay at the home.
Police searched the first floor of the house, which was a triplex, and did not find the girls. Officers were called to the house twice more the night of June 22, after the crowd returned, and searched the home once more, again finding nothing.
Around 10 a.m. June 23, a crowd returned to the home, and the civil unrest unfolded outside of it over the following 14 hours.
Prior to the unrest that day, police performed a third search of the home on 40th Street and again found no evidence the girls had been there.
As the unrest developed, someone recognized the two girls walking around Borchert Field, about three miles east of the unrest. That person alerted one of the mothers, who then located the two girls at 9th and Ring streets around 3:15 p.m. June 23. Police announced they were found the next day.
Police search efforts
Activists and families of missing women and girls of color in recent years have criticized the Milwaukee Police Department for its response to cases of missing women or young girls, especially those of color.
Frustrated families have in the past turned to social media and community activists for help. In a well-publicized case in 2018, activist Tory Lowe helped find a missing 16-year-old girl who was lured to Chicago by someone online and suffered weeks of abuse.
According to social media posts, at least some members of the crowd on 40th Street in June didn’t think police were doing enough to find the missing girls.
When one of the mother’s reported her daughter missing, she told police the daughter ran away, was of sound health and had no previous experience with human trafficking, according to the police report.
That means the missing girl did not qualify for an Amber Alert or for the label of “critically missing,” under the criteria listed in the Police Department’s standard operating procedures. The missing daughter was instead considered “non-critical missing” — someone who is not considered to be in immediate danger.
Those designations have ramifications for the resources police put into each missing person case. For example, when someone is labeled “critically missing,” a patrol sergeant and an investigator from the sensitive crimes division are assigned to coordinate an investigation and search, according to MPD policy.
Those resources are not typically given to someone who is non-critically missing. According to MPD policy, noncritical cases call for police to search the grounds from which the person went missing, conduct interviews and canvass the neighborhood, among other tasks. Follow-up is required daily or weekly, depending on whether the person has a history of going missing.
Milwaukee police did search the home of the 15-year-old girl in the North Division neighborhood, after her mother reported her missing, according to police documents. But no neighborhood canvass was documented and police could not confirm if one was conducted.