ID, Please?
Palestino brothers Kenneth, 5 and Kevin, 7 receive their first ID cards.
At the 104th Street Fair some children scribbled in the world, flowers, and a cornucopia with sidewalk chalk. Another crowd of children patiently gazed up at a clown as she magically turned a yellow scarf red. Other children clung to their parent’s hips and formed a line outside of the blue NYPD tent, waiting to be fingerprinted, photographed, and measured.
Operation Safe Child, similar to other Missing Child Alert programs, provides parents with up-to-date information about their child, in the form of an ID card. The child’s address, date-of-birth, eye color, exact height, weight along with other information on the card is stored in a New York State Police database and can be quickly circulated in case of an abduction or missing child emergency.
Brittany Staley from the Bronx and mother of two-year old, Nevaeh Reynolds, thought the idea of registering her daughter was useful. “Just in case someone kidnaps her or she wanders off, you never know what can happen, she said. “If she goes to daycare she can keep the card in her backpack.”
In New York City 5,839 children were reported missing in 2007. A large majority of the cases involve children thirteen and older who are considered runaways. Officer Garcia from the 23rd Precinct explained that the East Harlem neighborhood doesn’t hear of many lost children reports. Roughly about once a month Police say they receive a call about a missing teenager, who most likely turns up back home after a few days.
Regardless of statistics, prevention was on the minds of many parents. Yvette Russo mother of a nine-year-old, Tyrese, said, “You can never be too safe.”
Kevin Palestino is fingerprinted