Post by Sher on Aug 23, 2005 11:44:25 GMT -5
Area teen missing, info needed
By Cynthya Porter
It’s one of every parent’s worst nightmares: one day your teenager gets mad at you, and the next day he vanishes.
Kim Hock is living that nightmare right now, as she issues frantic pleas for information on the whereabouts of her son Taylor.
At 16, Taylor is too young to be on his own, Kim said, but her even greater fear is that he is not on his own at all, but being courted by a gang willing to take him in.
Hock said she and her son argued August 6. It was the kind of fight that seems stupid later, she said, a fight over the dogs and their kennels.
Taylor stormed off and she assumed he went to a friend’s house to cool off. Two days later Taylor had not returned home, but told his sister over the phone he was going camping on August 10.
Hock said when she ran into the people Taylor usually camps with, she knew something was wrong.
Scouring her son’s cell phone address book, Hock said the family has called each of his contacts asking for his whereabouts or any information at all.
Those she couldn’t reach she left messages with, Hock said, pleading for information.
But the information she got was chilling.
Anonymously, friends of Taylor’s called to say they heard he was on his way to Rockford or Chicago with an acquaintance in his early 20s who was paying for everything. They also said he was being courted to join a gang.
Hock said she spoke to the police, who offered little hope of finding a 16-year-old who wants to hide in cities like Rockford or Chicago. And even if they did find him, Hock said, running away is not a crime and they would likely only hold him in an unsecured halfway house until she arrived to get him. If he wanted to run, he’d be long gone before she ever arrived, Hock said.
In addition to her local searching, Hock has put Taylor’s information in three databases, Missing Children of Minnesota, Operation Lookout and the Vanished Children’s Alliance. Those agencies will distribute Taylor’s picture and information around the region and particularly in the areas where he is said to have been headed.
Hock said she asked police about the stories of him being recruited for a gang, but said officers were doubtful that was the case.
Still, Taylor’s friends told stories of recruiters coming to town looking for kids having problems at home. According to information Hock got, these “recruiters” offer youth new clothes, money, cell phones, whatever they want to bring them into the fold. Eventually, she said, they become drug runners or dealers for the gang.
It is a terrifying ordeal for Hock, who wants only give her son the message that his family loves him and will work things out if he will come back home.
Hock said Taylor is a good boy who had fairly normal teenage problems. “I want parents to understand,” she said. “It could be their kid next. I never expected this.”
www.winonapost.com/stock/functions/VDG_Pub/detail.php?choice=9830&home_page=1&archives
By Cynthya Porter
It’s one of every parent’s worst nightmares: one day your teenager gets mad at you, and the next day he vanishes.
Kim Hock is living that nightmare right now, as she issues frantic pleas for information on the whereabouts of her son Taylor.
At 16, Taylor is too young to be on his own, Kim said, but her even greater fear is that he is not on his own at all, but being courted by a gang willing to take him in.
Hock said she and her son argued August 6. It was the kind of fight that seems stupid later, she said, a fight over the dogs and their kennels.
Taylor stormed off and she assumed he went to a friend’s house to cool off. Two days later Taylor had not returned home, but told his sister over the phone he was going camping on August 10.
Hock said when she ran into the people Taylor usually camps with, she knew something was wrong.
Scouring her son’s cell phone address book, Hock said the family has called each of his contacts asking for his whereabouts or any information at all.
Those she couldn’t reach she left messages with, Hock said, pleading for information.
But the information she got was chilling.
Anonymously, friends of Taylor’s called to say they heard he was on his way to Rockford or Chicago with an acquaintance in his early 20s who was paying for everything. They also said he was being courted to join a gang.
Hock said she spoke to the police, who offered little hope of finding a 16-year-old who wants to hide in cities like Rockford or Chicago. And even if they did find him, Hock said, running away is not a crime and they would likely only hold him in an unsecured halfway house until she arrived to get him. If he wanted to run, he’d be long gone before she ever arrived, Hock said.
In addition to her local searching, Hock has put Taylor’s information in three databases, Missing Children of Minnesota, Operation Lookout and the Vanished Children’s Alliance. Those agencies will distribute Taylor’s picture and information around the region and particularly in the areas where he is said to have been headed.
Hock said she asked police about the stories of him being recruited for a gang, but said officers were doubtful that was the case.
Still, Taylor’s friends told stories of recruiters coming to town looking for kids having problems at home. According to information Hock got, these “recruiters” offer youth new clothes, money, cell phones, whatever they want to bring them into the fold. Eventually, she said, they become drug runners or dealers for the gang.
It is a terrifying ordeal for Hock, who wants only give her son the message that his family loves him and will work things out if he will come back home.
Hock said Taylor is a good boy who had fairly normal teenage problems. “I want parents to understand,” she said. “It could be their kid next. I never expected this.”
www.winonapost.com/stock/functions/VDG_Pub/detail.php?choice=9830&home_page=1&archives
