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Update on Chioma Gray and Latisha Rutledge
Posted February 02, 2008 at 5:10 PM

First, let's thank the powers that be: Latisha Rutledge has been found. She and her family are all okay. That is excellent, excellent news. Chioma Gray's disappearance and investigation, however, have more problematic factors added to it. I'm going to quote a substantial part of Deidra's post; I encourage you to go to her blog and read it in its entirety.
Just when you think that it's over, it's not. You guys remember when I made a post about the misinformation and inaccuracy of the posters in the case of Chioma Gray and her abductor Andrew Tafoya? Well it turns out that there were more mistakes (and two HUGE ones) than I thought in this case according to Kevin Myles president of the Wichita Branch NAACP and The Wichita NAACP Blog. He reports:
For starters, the original poster from the Center for Missing and Exploited children stated the Chioma was missing from Oxnard; she was not. Chioma is missing from Ventura. They also listed Andrew Tafoya's race as White; he is not. Andrew Joshua Tafoya is Hispanic. He is NOT 6 feet tall, he's 5'9" and he is NOT 195 pounds, he's 165 pounds. The poster also stated that a felony Kidnapping warrant had been issued for his arrest on December 14th; That also was not true.
According to the National Crime Information Computer System (NCIC), a National criminal database, viewable by Law Enforcement, no felony Kidnapping warrant was ever issued. In fact, while Chioma has now been missing for 50 days, there is STILL no felony Kidnapping warrant. The warrants issued are for: (278pc) Non-custodial person detainment or concealment of a child, which, while a felony is still far less severe than a (207pc) Felony Kidnapping charge.
An additional warrant was issued on the charge of (10851vc) Stolen vehicle. The poster also stated that they "may" travel to Mexico, when in fact the stolen vehicle was tracked by the license plate number crossing into Mexico on 12/13/07, the day of the abduction. The poster itself was not issued until the 22nd of December...
A second poster was released on 1/22. On this one, Andrew Tafoya was ALSO listed as missing along with Chioma and he was listed as her companion! Understand family, these are not schoolmates: this is an Adult who has absconded with a child. Andrew Tafoya is a convicted felon who has served time for (261.5pc) Unlawful sex with a minor. It is a tragic irony that the Ventura District Attorney's office actually produced a 'Resource and Referral guide for Teens, Parents, Educators, and Community' on the subject of "Unlawful Sex with a Minor" and the title of the guide is "A Crime we cannot ignore". Yet somehow, they seem to have found a way... I wonder whose decision it was to redesignate the kidnapper as a companion; who authorized that change? The very idea of it is offensive and a breach of the public's trust. The current poster from the NCMEC (this is now the third version) lists Chioma as an endangered missing person, but it still lists Andrew Joshua Tafoya as Chioma's companion! The poster no longer claims that a Kidnapping warrant has been filed. This is shameful! Read More...
After reading this, I decided to do a little research. I wanted to track down every poster that were ever made on this case to show and prove the mistakes that Kevin is talking about. Unfortunately I couldn't find every single posters - I wasn't able to save them all. But through the magic of google I found out that there wasn't just three updates - the poster was actually changed seven times! And that's a minimum of 7 times.
Why exactly can't people get it right with Chioma Gray? And the family must be insane with worry in the interim. Keep an eye out for Ms. Gray, say a word of hope for the family, and tell your local media that this young woman deserves better as we try to find her.

 
 
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Tags: media justice   missing persons   race and racism   sexism
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