Black members of Congress are calling for the Justice Department to help police investigate a large number of missing children in Washington, D.C.. The District of Columbia logged 501 cases of missing juveniles, many of them black or Latino, in the first three months of this year, according to the Metropolitan Police Department, the city's police force. Twenty-two were unsolved as of March 22, police said. [A letter] sent by Congressional Black Caucus chairman Cedric Richmond, D-La., and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents the District in Congress ... called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director James Comey to devote the resources necessary to determine whether these developments are an anomaly or whether they are indicative of an underlying trend that must be addressed." D.C. police officials said there has been no increase in the numbers of missing persons in their jurisdiction. "We've just been posting them on social media more often," said Metropolitan Police spokeswoman Rachel Reid. According to local police data, the number of missing child cases in the District dropped from 2,433 in 2015 to 2,242 in 2016. Derrica Wilson, co-founder of the Black and Missing Foundation, said that despite the assurances from police, it was alarming for so many children to go missing. Wilson said she is concerned about whether human trafficking is a factor, citing the case of 8-year-old Relisha Rudd, who has been missing since she vanished from a city homeless shelter in 2014.

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