CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department announced Wednesday that over 150 missing juveniles are now safe after a successful operation brought them home.
During a weekly press conference, the police department joined with several of its partners shared the success of the Operation Carolina Homecoming, which was a collaborative effort focused on the recovery of missing and runaway juveniles in the Charlotte area where previous efforts to locate them had been unsuccessful.
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Prior to the start of the operation, work by Detectives and Marshals resulted in the recovery of more than 130 missing and runaway juveniles. After preliminary efforts, officials launched the intensive recovery efforts of Operation Carolina Homecoming.
Between April 26 and May 7, 2021, two-person teams consisting of CMPD’s Missing Person Unit detectives, United States Marshal Service deputies and the Department of Public Safety Missing Persons Unit conducted extensive searches and located 27 more missing juveniles. The program helped locate and bring over 150 children home between the ages of 14 and 18.
Police said that several of the juveniles were discovered to have been engaged in high-risk activities such as prostitution and narcotics activity, and a few of them were victims of human trafficking.
To provide them with resources for recovery, the CMPD leveraged partnerships with Atrium Health Levine Children’s, Pat’s Place Child Advocacy Center, the North Carolina ISAAC Fusion Center and Mecklenburg County Child Protective Services.
