Texas authorities have arrested a 19-year-old woman for providing false information to the police about her supposed missing child, which did not actually exist.
According to a statement by the El Paso police, Stacie Dashay Marie Smith dialed 911 on June 30, expressing her concern that an unknown person had taken her friend’s car and her child. Although the police were able to locate the vehicle, they were unable to locate the missing child.
Detectives discovered that Smith, a resident of El Paso, had fabricated the existence of her child to hasten the police search for her friend’s vehicle.
Upon being accused of making a false alarm or report, she was taken into custody and subsequently booked into the El Paso County Detention Facility. In order to secure her release, a bond of $5,000 had to be posted.
We have reached out to the El Paso Police Department through email for further details, as reported by Newsweek.
The Texas Center for the Missing, a non-profit organization in Houston that provides assistance to missing individuals and their families, has reported that incidents of child abduction by strangers are extremely rare, accounting for less than 1% of cases. However, when such incidents do occur, they are considered to be the most severe cases, with a higher likelihood of bodily harm or even death.
According to the center, the Houston-Galveston region alone saw a staggering 9,531 cases of missing children filed in 2023.
According to the research conducted by World Population Review, Texas holds the second-highest position in the United States when it comes to the number of open missing person cases, with California being the only state that has a higher number.
Gun Crime in Texas
Last week, a man was taken into custody during the early hours of Thursday for the intentional shooting of two Chick-Fil-A employees that occurred on Wednesday afternoon.
After an extensive manhunt that lasted for several hours, law enforcement officers managed to locate and apprehend Oved Bernardo Mendoza Argueta, aged 37. He has since been charged with capital murder and is being held in Irving Jail.
According to an affidavit shared by the Irving Police Department with Newsweek, the defendant was positively identified with certainty by a witness who happens to be an employee’s spouse.
Just 48 hours after Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, declared gun violence a public health crisis, citing a nationwide survey that showed it to be the leading cause of death among young Americans between the ages of one to 19 since 2020, the Irving shooting occurred.
According to the survey, a “firearm-related incident” has been experienced by 54 percent of U.S. adults or their family members.
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