Police records contain hundreds of reports of runaways from juvenile facilities – NBC Chicago

The Lake County emergency call center continues to receive calls.

“I have to report a runaway…”

“This is the crisis center…”

“It will be a 15-year-old girl…”

Since 2012, the Gary Crisis Center, an emergency shelter and treatment facility for youth – including some from Indiana’s foster care system – has called Gary police more than 400 times.

More than 200 of those calls were missing persons or escape reports, according to an NBC 5 Investigates analysis of 911 call recordings, police reports and bodycam videos of the incidents.

Last year, there were 24 reports of runaways or missing persons. As of early May of this year, Gary police had received at least seven such reports.

Videos show that the shelter’s front door is equipped with an alarm system, but the facility is not locked, management said. And staff told police that children sometimes tell them they are leaving.

In one of the videos reviewed by NBC 5 Investigates, an employee admitted last September that she waited nearly an hour to call police and report a missing teenager. On the body camera video, the officer can be heard asking why she waited. Her response was that the teens are often nearby and return on their own before police arrive.

In this particular case, the then 17-year-old was found by his family on the streets of Gary a few days later. His family drove to Gary from outside Indianapolis and formed search teams after learning that he had run away.

While some mission records indicate that children have returned to the facility, other records are incomplete or do not provide information on how many, if any, children remain missing.

NBC 5’s investigation revealed that this problem was not isolated to a single facility.

According to the Indiana Department of Child Services, there were 1,062 reports of runaways in residential treatment facilities across the state of Indiana last year.

NBC 5 Investigates asked a DCS spokesperson if anyone from the agency was available to discuss the incidents or if efforts were underway to curb the recurring number of incidents. As of Friday, we were still waiting for a response.

In an email response, the crisis center’s executive director, Marion Collins, declined our interview request, citing privacy concerns. She declined to answer further questions about the incidents and the criticism of the facility.

Cecilia Garmon, a former employee, said she worked at the facility for nearly three years before leaving to take another job.

In an interview with NBC 5 Investigates, she continued to be critical of facility management.

She said staff could be hampered by staff shortages and that the children brought here had complex needs.

“Most employees are not trained and do not understand this target group,” Garmon said. “So yes, there will be fights, there will be employees who fight with children. I have seen employees beat children.”

The operational records we reviewed show at least 35 reports of physical assaults or fights over the past twelve years.

“I’ve seen children we can’t work with or help, and they still take them in to fill the beds,” she said.

On Christmas Day, a police body camera video analyzed by NBC 5 Investigates showed a child welfare social worker telling police and an emergency medical technician that a child needed to be taken away.

“He’s hurting himself and hitting his head on the ground. I can’t protect him and I can’t protect the staff,” the DCS social worker can be heard telling officers.

A paramedic reluctantly agreed to transport the teenager, but only after DCS and staff stated that they were unable to care for him.

Two months later, police arrived on another report of a runaway. This time it was an 18-year-old who, according to the incident records, was suffering from taking antipsychotic medication.

“It’s just disheartening because I’ve seen this done very well and it works so that the kids have every opportunity to thrive, and the crisis center is just not the place for that,” Garmon said.

Online state financial records show the crisis center received more than $4 million from state agencies in the last fiscal year.