There's a huge search effort for missing OC teenager Bryce Laspisa this weekend, with Klaaskids. Volunteers still walking the mountains of San B for Alois Krost. Shameca Johnson's case saw her friends parking their bottoms on the sidewalk, waiting to be interviewed about their missing friend.
I am very, very glad for all the help extended by all these people to help bring the missing home, I really am.
But everytime I see it, my heart breaks a little bit more for Bob and Fontelle. Two very senior seniors, one missing, one waiting. And they've had very little help at all. I wish there could be a big, public search for Bob, made up of volunteers.
I think there are a few people directly responsible for making the public feel it's either impossible to search for Bob, or it's futile. There must be a way of narrowing down who has done this, and how, and why.
BBM
In the vast majority of missing persons cases, there is little or no media attention. There are various reasons why but it comes down to a combination of Pretty White Girl or Woman syndrome and a form of classism that is pervasive in the US.
It has been shown that the media disproportionately gives coverage to white people, particularly girls or women. I recall an article that I read during the Scott Peterson trial that showed that while the whole nation was riveted to Laci Peterson, there was a black mother of two whose story was otherwise very similar to Laci's life who was getting zilch coverage.
Likewise, the wealthier the victim or the victim's family, the more likely they are to get media attention. For one thing, people who speak in an educated manner are more likely to get TV news coverage than someone with a backwoods accent or a hick twang (which is very much associated with class). Wealthy families are more likely to do the sort of expensive but attention getting gestures that really play well with the media (offering a reward, paying for search aircraft, etc).
The thing that is puzzling to me in Bob's case is that when he disappeared the family had already vaulted the media barrier. The media were already interested in him! The family wouldn't have needed to campaign and beg for TV cameras, the local media was already on it. And of course Bob was wealthy and his descendants were solidly middle class with enough education to make a good impression on camera.
The problem with public searches is that no one has ever organised one. People who are likely to volunteer for a search don't usually just spontaneously go out and search (and they should not, for various reasons). Every search I've ever read or been involved in had someone with standing as the organiser. Sometimes LE, sometimes a family member.
So in order to stop public searches, all the family had to do was do nothing. Placentia itself is completely urban, so if Bob was in Placentia, he would have been found. So the PPD wouldn't be organising searches, their jurisdiction ends at the town borders. What is needed is searches of the wildland areas outside Placentia.
It's so easy for the family just to do nothing.
