On the other end of the phone, a mother from Bartlett City, Tennessee was crying for help to search for her daughter who had run away from home. She contacted the Bartlett Police Department, but the officer just recorded the case and told her to wait because they didn't have manpower to search for her daughter. She then contacted Police Department of Memphis City and was turned away by her very own city's police department. She was anxious and frustrated.
On this end of the line, Sergeant Len Edwards was listening to her patiently. As the Executive Director of the Commission on Missing & Exploited Children (COMEC, website at www.comec.org), Edwards receives such phone calls almost every day.
Len Edwards was telling his own experiences to a group of board members and friends of COMEC at a meeting in the Variety Club in Memphis last Thursday night. "This is the real life. It is quite different from what you see in the movies or on TV. Parents need to be realistic." Edwards said, "In Shelby County, 61% of the families are single parent families, and on average, parents talk to their children face to face only 20 minutes per week. There is a broken link in the communication between parents and their children."
Catching the words from the worried mother between sobs and using his 34 years of experiences as a police officer, Len finally got a picture of the situation. They talked on the phone for over 20 minutes. Len told her that she must help herself now. He gave her suggestions on where to go, what to do, and what to say.
Later, when the mother in Bartlett called him again, she was very surprised. She had followed Len's instructions and drove to her mother's house. She repeated all the words Len told her to say. The grandmother started crying and told her where to pick up her daughter. "How do you know where she is?!"
This was a local case. Len also has a lot of international cases, such as the one when a father abducted his child and fled to Greece, in which he has to use his network of contacts to help. COMEC has a large network ranging from friends, from state school systems all the way to the Department of State in Washington DC.
This mother is one of the lucky parents who found COMEC to help them. "All of our services are free," said Len, "I do not want a mother calling me and thinking of how I can pay off the service charges." COMEC also provides about 5000 free "Finger Print Kits" and makes 7,000 to 10,000 free photo identity cards for children every year.
But the mother whose child was abducted to Greece was not so lucky. The police in Greece found her child but she doesn't have the necessary $7,500 dollars to travel to Greece and pick up her child. According to the Chairperson of the COMEC Board of Directors, Tran Smith, COMEC is running on a very small and tight budget funded by donations. The board is now exploring more channels to fund the nonprofit organization. "If we have enough resources, we can help her bring back her child." Len said.
For more information, visit www.comec.org
Or contact:
Commission on Missing and Exploited Children
616 Adams Ave.
Memphis, TN 38105
901-405-8441
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