Why Don’t Police Find Missing Black Folks?

By Trina Reynolds-Tyler, Invisible Institute, and Sarah Conway, City Bureau | Word In Black This story is part one of the 7-part Chicago Missing Persons project by City Bureau and Invisible Institute, two Chicago-based nonprofit journalism organizations. (WIB) – Shantieya Smith was a proud, protective mother. Every morning, rain or shine, the slender 26-year-old would sling her young daughter’s backpack over her shoulder, and hand in hand, they would dash across the street to the neighborhood elementary school. Smith was a protector in her North Lawndale home, where three generations lived under one roof — the cousin you’d call when there was trouble, who’d teach anyone the latest Chicago dance styles in the living room, and whose cherry red or bottle blonde weaves mirrored her bright energy. RELATED:& Media’s Strange Treatment of Missing Black Women So when Smith walked out her front door on a warm May afternoon in 2018 to run a quick errand, her mother, Latonya Moore, didn’t think much of it. “It was a trip that was supposed to be so fast she didn’t even bring her cell phone,” Moore remembers. Moore didn’t realize this would be the last moment she would see her daughter alive. In...