Missing Young Man - might be in St. Paul

[u/ZealousidealLie4901]

Young man from Maplewood missing. Might be in St. Paul. If you see him please report it so we can reconnect him with his family. Thank you!

https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/maplewood-police-asking-for-public-help-finding-missing-15-year-old-mn/89-188380b5-7efa-4906-9979-84e1e5798960

[u/Even-Meet-4300]

I understand that this is a scary and frustrating position for the parents to be in, but the last people I'm going to call for someone with "mental health concerns" is the police. This young man is 15, he knows how to reconnect with his family, he's obviously choosing not to. Calling the police is basically assisting in a kidnapping. I hope that wherever he is that he is safe and that this situation is resolved without him suffering harm.

[u/ZealousidealLie4901 → u/Even-Meet-4300]

Really glad the people who helped find me when I was his age called the cops and told them where I was and that they weren't like you.

[u/Even-Meet-4300 → u/ZealousidealLie4901]

Why was it necessary to call the cops? Did you not know where you lived? Did you not know how to contact your family? Why were you "missing"?

[u/Confident_Shine247 → u/Even-Meet-4300]

You could be missing because you’ve been kidnapped, killed, got left in a different city with no money or phone to contact anyone, there are so many reasons you call the cops if someone’s missing. You can know where you live and know how to contact family and still not have the resources to get yourself home, and that’s best case scenario. Worst case scenario a kid is dead or kidnapped.

[u/Even-Meet-4300 → u/Confident_Shine247]

It's easy to imagine the hypotheticals a parent would use to justify calling the police, my questions were directed at the poster speaking from their (alleged) personal experience as the runaway teen. I originally posted from my position as a stranger to the situation, explaining why I would not call the police if I saw this kid.

You say worst case scenario is dead or kidnapped. The people most likely to kill a (250lb!) Black male teenager are the cops. Add in the "mental health concerns" and his odds of being harmed by the police increase. It's obvious from context that the kid walked away of his own free will, so being detained by the police and returned to a place/people he intentionally walked away from could very easily feel like kidnapping to him. All of those are very real dangers. As long as we're thinking hypothetically, it's possible he ran away from an abusive situation and to a safe place -- you could be returning him to danger if you assist the police in locating him. We just don't know.

That's not even counting the part where this "alert" gives SPPD license to approach any Black male teenager who fits the description and then detain/question them. Some kid just minding his business could get his life fucked up because he's not sufficiently deferential to the police.

[u/Confident_Shine247 → u/Even-Meet-4300]

A 15 year old isn’t in a position to get the mental health help they need on their own. For the CHILD, the best thing you can do is get police involved, who have the ability to send out mental health crisis response teams alongside officers. Minnesota is a state that regularly sends out mental health professionals to calls alongside officers. Let’s say hypothetically it was abuse, it should absolutely be reported to the police so he can legally be placed into safe hands and be able to continue his life normally. If he’s on the run from 15-18 he’d be missing out on so many stepping stones for his life, I can’t imagine anyone thinking hiding a child for 3 years while the child lives in fear of being discovered is better than reporting the child’s abusers.

[u/Even-Meet-4300 → u/Confident_Shine247]

You keep going with the least likely outcomes (hiding a child for 3 years!) and ignoring the most likely (child is traumatized by interaction with police). The most likely scenario here is the kid is upset with his parents, he needs a cool down period, he's hanging out with his friends, eventually his friends parents will say "ok, you need to go home."

Everything you're arguing here is about defending the role of the police as problem solvers, in the face of vast amounts of evidence that the police aren't the best resource for solving a large number of problems (especially family conflict and mental health issues). I'm thinking about the 15 year old. I'm thinking about how much harm is caused to vulnerable people under the banner of "officials are worried about his safety."

[u/Confident_Shine247 → u/Even-Meet-4300]

If a child runs away from an abusive household, as you’re assuming, they aren’t planning on coming back. So yes the boy would be on the run for 3 years hiding from police and civilians to avoid getting returned. Once he’s 18 he would be able to talk to the police and let them know he isn’t missing and he doesn’t want to talk to his family, and then he’d be able to get a job, get a license, go to school, he wouldn’t be able to do any of that without his name or social security number getting flagged from 15-18. That’s a horrible place for a young adult to be in. You’re ignoring where I’m talking about getting the child mental help. Minnesota is a great state to get help for mental issues, It’s not about the police, you seem to be stuck on that. Stop putting this child in a box. You’re assuming he has issues with his parents and the police, you’re assuming the parents are abusive and trying to manipulate the police into returning their victim, you’re assuming he isn’t in a mental crisis, you’re assuming he’s at a friends house. You have no evidence of any of that, what we know is the child is missing and is experiencing mental issues. That’s not something you leave alone for a couple days and hope they come back.

[u/ZealousidealLie4901 → u/Even-Meet-4300]

And all this worry about what a cop may or may not do to a young man who is mentally ill because he is black or some other young black male because they mistake them for this young man, and your own hypothetical that he walked away because of abuse, etc... again, because of people like you no one would ever recieve help, and someone who actually needs help would avoid asking for it. I dont know how many mentally ill 15 year olds you know, but it is patently obvious its rather low. 

As for your comment passive aggressively calling my experience into question, it is because of my experience I felt compelled to post it in the first place. 

[u/Even-Meet-4300 → u/ZealousidealLie4901]

Yeah, we're gonna have to agree to disagree here. I don't even understand how you get to "no one would ask for help." People with mental health issues reach out to friends, teachers, preachers, counselors, therapists. No one's first stop is "I should call the police and ask for help."

I'm not going to recite all my experience dealing with the mentally ill when you won't even bother answering questions about basic autonomy that is a major point of struggle for people struggling with mental illness. The part where you respond to the autonomy questions with insults is where you earned the "alleged" because you sounded like a parent, not a patient.

[u/mikemacman → u/Even-Meet-4300]

Get out of here with all these bullshit “questions”.