Police sketch
Sketch of missing girl and attacker suspectHow many times have you heard the saying "If you see something, say something"? Call the police? That's exactly what witnesses did after they saw a missing girl dragged by her hair from a recreation center and assaulted in Los Angeles on Tuesday. But what's happened since is perhaps more disturbing than their reports.

Police immediately responded to the reports of an alleged kidnapping. They found leggings and sneakers that appeared to belong to a young girl, and used witness accounts to create sketches of both the kidnap victim and her attacker.

All of that is chilling as it is. Think about a girl being attacked and taken from a public place, and tell me that doesn't make you uneasy. It's unsettling for me as a parent and as a woman who is on the smaller side. This was 8 p.m. at a recreation center, not 1 p.m. in a darkened alley.

I can't help but ask how people saw this happen and didn't stop it, how this girl just up and disappeared. But we don't know who the witnesses were, if they were young too, if they were scared of what would happen to them, or if the attacker threatened to hurt the girl worse if they intervened.

What troubles me more is what has stymied police. No one has reported their daughter missing. No one has even reported an assault.

No one?

After all that? What kind of family is this girl coming from? Does she even have a family or are we talking about some young girl forced into prostitution? Perhaps I watch too much Law and Order, but my mind has been reeling with the possibilities, and none of them are good.

We have a girl who was clearly assaulted at best, kidnapped at worst. And no one cares enough to get her some help?

I wondered if it was just a wild goose chase, but police say the witness accounts hold, and they're sure that a girl likely around 13 to 15 years old was dragged out of that recreation area, that she was most certainly smacked in the face, and had some of her clothes torn away. At the very least, that's an assault charge?

I can't help but draw the worst conclusions here. This girl is in need of help, not just in getting away from her attacker, but in getting away from a situation that would disregard an attack like this.

Sadly, police have called off the search because you can't help someone who hasn't really asked for your help ...

What do you make of a family that doesn't call this in?

 

Image via Los Angeles Police Department