Congressman Rush calls for Task Force for missing Black women and girls
Congressman Bobby Rush has sent a letter to the Department of Justice and FBI calling for a task force to address the issue of unsolved missing Black women and girls, as well as the backlog of rape kits. Photo provided by Congressman Bobby Rush
Congressman Bobby L. Rush sent a letter to the Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Federal Bureau of Investigations Christopher Wray. He is calling for the creation of a task force to address the backlog of unsolved missing persons and murder cases across the country.
In the letter, Rush mentioned the 20th anniversary of Tionda and Diamond Bradley’s disappearance. The Bradley sisters, Tionda, age 3, and Diamond, age 10, went missing on July 6, 2001 from Chicago and have not been found. Rush has been disturbed, angry and motivated to do all he can since their disappearance.
“A great deal of similar heinous cases of missing persons and murder crimes involving minority women and girls remain unsolved. In addition, children of color are often initially classified as runaways rather than missing – meaning that they do not receive a timely Amber Alert that is all too often critical to solving these types of cases,” the letter reads.
Rush believes the issues can be thoroughly addressed in the Biden administration than in the previous administration. He thinks it is the right time for the issue of missing Black women and girls cases going unsolved to be addressed. Rush wants all the resources, manpower and money necessary to address this issue.
To Rush, the denial of the existence of the problem by law enforcement comes from their race. Rush said racism sits at the core of all of it.
“The immediate response from law enforcement and the media is to blame the victims. When our young girls are missing, they are runaways,” he said. Rush added that time can result in the delay of committing resources and finding the missing person and allows the perpetrator to cover their tracks.
In April, Rush led a panel discussion on missing Black women and girls, with Evelyn Holmes as the moderator. During the discussion, Julia Flowers and Rosie Dawson, co-founders of Stop Taking Our Girls Campaign talked about the disproportionate number of resources given to missing Black women and girls versus missing White women and girls.
“We run to the police station when our daughters are missing and they say, give us 24 hours, 48 hours, because she probably just ran away from home. Are you serious?” Flowers said.
Since the panel discussion, Rush’s office has been working continuously with organizations that work to help bring the matter of Missing Black women and girls to the public. They are working to get more police involvement in these matters.
In 2019, Rush asked the FBI to intervene and start processing the backlogged evidence in murders of Black women and girls, after reports that between 2001 and 2017, there were dozens of murders of Black women and girls that went unsolved.
“Let the evidence be gathered. Clear up the rape kits. Eliminate the backlog of rape kits that languishes in these police labs, both in Illinois and around the country,” he said.
Rush is hopeful Wray and Merrick will create the task force and will make it a priority for the Department of Justice and the FBI. Once the task force is created, Rush wants to make sure it has ample resources – manpower and money.
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