The Family Justice Center opened its doors Wednesday to help reconnect Chattanoogans with missing loved ones and friends who have been gone for more than a month as part of Missing Persons Day.
The public was invited to come work with the Chattanooga Police Department’s Missing Persons unit and officials from the Tennessee Department of Health to provide information and DNA samples. That information then was entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System for free.
“This event is necessary to raise public awareness about missing persons cases,” said Chattanooga police Sgt. Vinnie Holoman.
“There is also a new law, Help Find the Missing Act, which assists Tennessee law enforcement and medical examiners to bridge the gap between missing persons and unidentified persons in the hope of eventual identification,” he said. “The law requires law enforcement to enter a person that has been missing for 30 days into a national database.”
He said missing people reports come in on a daily basis and the department investigates 30-50 cases a month, most of which involve juvenile runaways.