Black, Missing, and Invisible in Police Records

By Trina Reynolds-Tyler, Invisible Institute, and Sarah Conway, City Bureau | Word In Black A teddy bear lays on a tossed sofa in the ally a few doors down were Shantiey SmithÕs body was found in 2019. Photo by Sebastian Hidalgo for City Bureau This story is part five of& Chicago Missing Persons, a two-year investigation& by City Bureau and Invisible Institute, two Chicago-based nonprofit journalism organizations, into how Chicago police handle missing person cases reveals the disproportionate impact on Black women and girls, how police have mistreated family members or delayed cases, and how poor police data is making the problem harder to solve. (WIB) – On June 7, 2018, two weeks after her daughter Shantieya Smith walked out her front door, Latonya Moore remembers sitting on her porch when a neighbor’s son came with a message: “My mom says you need to come down.” Moore took off, walking less than two blocks down her tree-lined street to see people gathering around a bungalow with police crime scene tape on its front fence. A bad odor emanated from its dilapidated garage. As Moore made her way into the crowd, she heard someone say that a body was found —...