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Authorities tracked down 43 missing and runaway kids from Westchester County last week during a massive operation that lasted just three days, officials said.
The widespread effort — spearheaded by the state Division and Criminal Justice Services and involving 70 federal, New York and local agencies — was run out of a hotel in Mount Kisco.
“Everyone is in the room focused on one task, and when something is needed, it’s a conversation across the table instead of a phone call,” said Tim Williams, program manager at the division’s Missing Person’s Clearinghouse, to The Post.
“So the success of this operation is having everyone in that room and ready to go.”
Westchester Missing Child Rescue Operation involved experts in law enforcement, child services and digital technology blanketing the suburban county, Williams siad.
The effort, which wrapped up Thursday, targeted five Westchester communities plagued by missing-child cases — Dobbs Ferry, Mount Pleasant, Mount Vernon, White Plains and Yonkers, the state agency said.
Officials hunkered down at the Hotel MTK to run the operation, which included staffers from a slew of public and private agencies, including the state Office of Children and Family Services, the National Child Protection Task Force, state, county and local law enforcement and nonprofit groups.
“Sometimes, the unthinkable happens and a child goes missing, placing them in the worst of situations,” state Police Superintendent Steven James said in a statement.
“Although investigations of missing and exploited children are difficult, acts that threaten the well-being of children are unconscionable,” James said. “Interagency operations such as this are crucial, and we will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to safeguard the children of New York.”
The Westchester County operation was the third by the state missing-persons clearing-house group.
Officials said 71 children who were reported missing were located in one of the previous operations in the Capital Region and another 47 in Buffalo and surrounding communities.
Last year alone, 10,629 Empire State children under the age of 18 were reported missing to police — at least 94 percent of them listed as runaways.
At year’s end, there were 1,079 of the cases still open in the state, officials said.
“Our mindset is every time a child goes missing, regardless of their reason for leaving, or the reason that they’ve gone missing, as soon as that child is missing, they are considered endangered.” Williams said,
“In this current day and age the digital footprint of missing children is where we start and social media plays a huge role.” he added.
A majority of the 43 children located during the three-day joint operation accepted services and were returned home of placed in a safe environment, officials said.
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