Chance to do By the end of the
first half they can take the le.
The disturbing details drew
attention from around the count.
This involves a teenage girl whs
taken from a Dallas Mavericks ge
On April 8th, 2022. A 15 year od
girl went to a Mavs game with her dad.
She left her seat to use the bathroom
around halftime and never came .
The parents of a 15 year old girl who
disappeared from a Dallas Mavers
game want accountability now? Ds
later, she was recovered from wt
police say was a sex trafficking
operation in Oklahoma City.
But for Brooke and Kyle Morris,
it's what didn't happen the nigt
their daughter disappeared that haunts
them. I certainly did not get tt
sense that there was a lot of urgency,
that they were maybe overly concerned.
Kyle Morris and Dallas Police confirmed
he reported her missing to an of
duty officer who was working the
game and that the area was sear.
They were checking bathrooms and stairwells,
but they weren't checking outsie
because there's footage of her outside
sitting on the steps with police
officers coming in and out of v.
If there had been a photo,
if there had been a description,
I mean anything they they would
have been like, you know, hey
and when they didn't find her
during the initial search.
Kyle Morris was told he had to report
her missing to the Police Depart
where they lived in North Richland Hills,
30 miles away, according to the North
Richland Hills Police Departmen.
By the time Morris got back
home and filed the report,
it was 124 the next morning.
The department entered her intoe
national missing person database
about two hours later at 3:27 A.
Even though the team went missing in Dallas,
it was two days before the Dalls
Police Department sent out a bulletin
to patrol officers on April 11t.
A week after that, on April 18t,
she was found not by Dallas or
North Richland Hills police,
but by Oklahoma City police.
Only after her parents worked wh
an anti trafficking group in Hon
to match her photos with sex ads that
traffickers had created of her online
had any circumstance been diffe.
How long would it have taken
Dallas or North Richland Hills r
the FBI or Homeland to find her?
How long before they found those ads?
When the unimaginable happens,
time is as warped as it is cruc.
When your child is missing,
every day is like a year.
The Morrises weren't
strangers to this feeling.
Their daughter had run away befe
many times, and they've gotten
a similar response from police.
Many times she's run away.
She'll be back.
You don't know where she went.
We don't know where she went.
It was pretty much the narrative
of she'll turn up, don't you kn,
turn out to worry about it. Too.
And every other time they were right.
But it only took one time
for them to be wrong,
exposing a major snag in the sy.
Shortly after the Morris's
daughter was recovered,
WFAA asked DPD why Kyle Morris d
to travel all the way back to Nh
Richland Hills to file his repo.
In an e-mail, a spokesperson cid
Section 51 of the Texas Family ,
writing that this portion of state law quote,
dictates that missing juveniles
are investigated as runaways
unless there are circumstances
which appear as involuntary,
such as a kidnapping or abducti,
and that those cases per code ao
be filed where the juvenile res.
The Morrises say they
were told the same thing.
How
does DPD interpret that part of Texas code?
I would say that investigativelt
may have caused us some concern.
Assistant Chief Katrina Shed isr
Dpd's Investigations Bureau, which houses
the unit that works runaway cas.
It's difficult to articulate tho
can imagine being a parent articulating
that to them, not here but ther,
go there and report, you know,
difficult to articulate.
It even harder to explain becaue
when we look through Chapter
51 at the Texas Family Code,
we found that the Texas law does say a
child as young as ten who leaves home
quote voluntarily for a substanl
length of time or without inteno
return is considered to be a runaway.
But this part of the code does t
at all address how law enforcement is
supposed to respond or create the case.
That's actually found in Texas
Criminal Code in Chapter 63,
and we didn't find any requirems
for people reporting runaways to
do so in their home jurisdiction
in this part of the law either.
Actually, DPD's website says that's a
reporter runaway juvenile to the department.
The juveniles legal address has
to be in the city of Dallas.
A department policy,
not state law.
And so that's kind of the
disconnect that occurred there.
Texas State Senator Kelly Hanco,
who represents North Richland H,
introduced Senate Bill 24 to
9:00 during the most recent
regular legislative session.
The bill states that a local
law enforcement agency,
regardless of jurisdiction,
must start an investigation and enter
the child into the National Crie
Information Center within 48 ho.
It wasn't consistent what all police forces
will look at when the child goes missing and.
How they treat runaways, missing children.
It also gives a clearer definitn
of what makes a missing child
at risk and gives additional
training for responding to them.
There was a lag time and delay that this
legislation is and working with police,
hopefully that will address
some of this gap that occurred.
The governor signed it into law this month.
It goes into effect on September 1st.
My hope is that no one else has
to go through anything even
remotely similar to our situati.
In a statement, DPD said
it is reviewing all legislation
and will work to implement any
required changes when the new lw
goes into effect in September.
Now, I also reached out to some other
local police departments in our area and
Fort Worth confirmed and also requires
runaways to live in the city foe
department to investigate the c.
We will continue to dig on the
investigations and the stigma of
runaway teens in North Texas and
I do want to hear from you.
You can send me an e-mail
to investigates@wfaa.com.