CLEVELAND — The U.S. Marshals recovered 79 reported missing children across Ohio during Operation Meridian, which took place throughout August. On average, the marshals would find 5 to 10 kids per month, making this the largest number of children recovered in a single operation in Ohio history.
The children, ranging in age from 6 to 17, were found across the state and in other states. The operation was conducted throughout the month in coordination with federal, state and local law enforcement partners. Each child was found under a range of dangerous circumstances.
"These children were involved in a little bit of everything. Some were abused, some were neglected, some were found as far away as Georgia, some were being sex trafficked, prostituted out," said Peter Elliott with U.S. Marshals Northeast Ohio.
The operation focused on children reported missing due to suspected sex trafficking, physical and emotional abuse, neglect, running away and other forms of endangerment. Arrests were also made during the mission, but returning children to their families remained a central goal.
"We did our best to reunite kids with their families, and social services is huge in this, and they always have been. And we worked with social services from Toledo to Youngstown to the Quaker area," Elliott said.
Law enforcement worked closely with Children and Family Services to ensure recovered children were connected with appropriate medical, psychological and social service agencies. Those organizations provided ongoing support, including trauma-informed counseling, family reunification services and long-term case management.
Deputy U.S. Marshal Jordan Fisher, who was part of the operation, said the partnership between agencies was key to its success.
"The resources are a big thing. Bringing all the resources in together and working joint operations with our partnerships within the community and, you know, state, local and federal partners working together. Really, anything can be accomplished," Fisher said.
Newburgh Heights Police Chief John Majoy, former president of Cleveland Missing and chairman of the Northeast Ohio Amber Alert Committee, said the scale of the missing-persons problem in the region makes that kind of collaboration essential.
"At any given time there's on the upwards of about 400 missing persons in Cuyahoga County alone," Majoy said. "When you look at the number of missing versus the number of police officers, there's, there's not enough of us to go around."
He praised the Marshal Service for stepping in to help fill that gap.
"Combining those resources, there's strength in numbers. And so, this is why I can't speak highly enough about the Marshal Service and what they've done," Majoy said.
Elliott said the Marshal Service has also restructured internally to better address missing-children cases through a newly created unit.
"It's called the Spear Unit, and it's something we created on Jan. 1, and we merged our missing persons unit, missing child unit together with our sexual predator unit and our cold case unit, and we have two deputy sheriffs that are assigned out of the county to this unit, so they're going out making a tremendous difference," Elliott said.
Elliott expects the combined unit to produce even stronger results going forward.
"I think when there's focus with anything in life, focus makes a difference, and especially in law enforcement. When you bring all your resources, put all those resources together and have a mission, and the mission was to find missing children. It's going to be successful," Elliott said.
Despite the record-breaking results, Elliott said the work is far from over.
"We're never satisfied. We want to continue to get out there and find missing children. So we don't, jump for joy and say, 'Hey, look at what we did this for the month of August. It's over.' Heck, no. It's just beginning. We're going to continue to be out there and find missing children," Elliott said.
If you have any information about a missing child, contact the U.S. Marshals hotline at 1-866-4WANTED.
Nadeen Abusada is a Cuyahoga County and immigration reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on Instagram NadeenAbusada or email her at Nadeen.Abusada@wews.com.
