Gwinnett County police need help finding more than 20 missing teens

Gwinnett County police launch missing kid initiative

The Gwinnett County Police Department is asking for the public's help to find more than 20 missing teens. That’s out of more than 200 reported cases of missing children and teens this year.

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. - The Gwinnett County Police Department says there are more than 20 missing teens whom they need your help to find.

Sgt. Jennifer Richter is the supervisor of the Special Victims Unit for Gwinnett County Police.

She mentioned one case of a missing teen that stands out to her.

"The Asada Amun case. She actually left her father's home back in January and we are asking for the public's help for any information that the public might have on this case to please get in contact with us so that we can locate her and get her back to a safe place," Richter said.

However, 16-year-old Asada is just one of several dozen teens missing from Gwinnett County.

"Right now, we are hovering somewhere around about 20 to 25 kids and teenagers that are considered to be missing," Richter said.

She said, so far this year, they have had about 215 reports of missing kids and teens. Most are found within a week of being reported missing, but that’s not the case for 16-year-olds Sarea Bey who disappeared from her home in Lawrenceville on June 25, or for Samaria Broughton who was last seen in Loganville in July,

"Any kid that's away from home could potentially be in danger. That's how we think of it," Richter said.

That’s why Richter says they’re pushing out these photos of kids on social media more often.

For instance, they post their pictures on the department’s Instagram stories and in a photo album on its Facebook page devoted solely to missing kids.

"We heard from our community that they wanted to have more engagement with this issue and that they wanted to know more about what was going on with these kids. And it was really a no-brainer to leverage the thousands of followers that we have to get more eyes on these cases," Richter said.

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Alexis Manor (Gwinnett County Police Department)

It's all in the hope that someone will recognize teens like 16-year-old Jaxon Shelafoe who was last seen in Buford, or 15-year-old Zico Smith who disappeared from Lawrenceville.

"Any amount of kids missing is a lot," Sgt. Richter said.

Sgt. Richter also described in detail how they make sure many different departments and officers are involved with these cases.

"But we really have a system set up where multiple people touch these cases. So, they come into the uniformed division. The uniform officer will take steps to try to locate the child at the time that they take the report. If they are not successful, then it will come up to the Investigations Division I or one of the other special victims supervisors will look at the report. We will most likely get in contact with the parent to double-check everything, make sure we have all the information that we need, our investigative aid and the unit will also most likely get in contact with the parent just to double-check, make sure we have everything asked for a picture of the child if we don't already have it. And then if the child doesn't return home within 5 to 7 days. We have a dedicated detective that works on these cases, so the case goes to him, and he will follow up on any leads. And of course, in the interim, any leads that we get from the parent or anyone else, we follow up on that as well," Richter said.

Sgt. Richter says if you see one of these teens while you’re out, call 911 immediately. Or if you have information about where they may be, call the Gwinnett County Police Department's detective division at (770) 513-5300.