SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WXYZ) — Through ‘Operation We Will Find You,’ a 10-week national operation by the United States Marshals Service (USMS) in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, Michigan State Police Missing Child Clearinghouse and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, 25 endangered missing children, including runaways and those taken by non-custodial persons, have been found.
The first national operation to find missing children, ‘Operation We Will Find You,’ focuses on locations with high amounts of critically missing children. The effort was presented to the USMS as an opportunity to increase and show the importance of partnerships between law enforcement agencies and NCMEC to find missing children.
Owen M. Cypher, U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Michigan, said in a statement: “the U.S. Marshals service has many important missions, but I cannot think of any that is more critical than finding children who are missing and getting them to safety. When the USMS receives a missing child case, time is of the utmost essence, and we will dedicate all resources and stop at nothing to ensure a safe recovery of that child.”
USMS’ authority to assist law enforcement with the recovery endangered missing children was garnered by the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015.
Since 2005, over 3,050 missing children have been recovered through USMS’ partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. NCMEC said 62 percent of endangered missing children recovered under the partnership were found within seven days of USMS providing assistance with cases.
Cypher added in a statement, “I am extremely proud of the tireless work that my deputies and our taskforce officers have committed to Operation We Will Find You. Our work does not stop here, we are only getting started. We intend to build on this mission of recovering missing children here in the Eastern District of Michigan and will stop at nothing to bring home any missing child that we become aware of. It is what anyone would ask of law enforcement, and it is what any of us would want if it were our child that was missing.”
