At the Capitol, members of the Congressional Black Caucus asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate. On Wednesday night, dozens of community activists and parents — including a mother who said she had struggled to get help from the police when her 12-year-old child was missing for a week — gathered outside the African American Civil War Memorial for a Protect Black Kids candlelight vigil.
In truth, there is no surge in disappearances; reports of missing children here have actually declined over the past year. But in this city of haves and have-nots, the uproar has exposed a part of the capital the rest of America rarely sees, and it points to a deeper and more nuanced problem: at-risk youths, disproportionately black and Latino, whose lives and struggles — sometimes involving sex trafficking — are often ignored by public officials and the news media.
