DENVER — When a child goes missing, depending on the situation, an Amber Alert is issued. However, it doesn't apply to all families and all cases.
An Amber Alert was not issued for a teen girl who was reported missing over the weekend in Denver. That was why the Dock Ellis Foundation Inc. jumped in.
The foundation has a big mission. As listed on its website, the group aims "to empower minority victims of human trafficking, domestic violence, and families of missing persons through education, awareness and access to services."
"We continue 24 hours a day," said Tanya Frazier, who works with the foundation. "We don't stop. We are straight boots on the ground. Phones in hand, iPads up and going, laptops going."
Jasmine Ellis, the CEO of Dock Ellis Foundation Inc., said as soon as they're able to confirm a child of color is missing, the women and men who make up the team get right to work.
"We do it all. We are literally nonstop," she said. "We are, right now, running off of no sleep, little bit of coffee. ...We do the flyers. We automatically push it through social media to make it go viral. We spread that from Facebook, TikTok, Instagram — anywhere that we know that we can catch the attention of the younger crowd."
On Monday, they continued working on a case of a missing teen girl out of Denver. The girl was identified by the Denver Police Department as 16-year-old Tayanna Manuel.
Around 5 p.m. Monday, police said she had been found deceased on Monday morning near the intersection of Telluride Street and Green Valley Ranch Boulevard. Police said they believe she was murdered.
Police believe that a 2012 gray Honda CR-V with Colorado license plate CNE-I47 on the rear is involved in her murder. The car has a pink and black Auto Nation dealer plate on the front.
Anybody with information on this case is asked to call Denver Metro Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867. A GoFundMe account has been created to help with her funeral expenses.
"We make all of the necessary phone calls," Ellis said of the cases the foundation helps with. "We handle the media for the family. There is not anything that we don't do."
The foundation and those who make it up did this work all while fielding calls and working on other missing children of color cases across the country.
"It may look like we're only working on one case. But there's multiple cases that we're dealing with," Ellis said.
Despite what happens with one case, the women and men of the Dock Ellis Foundation Inc. agree the work they do is important and they don't plan on stopping anytime soon.
"We don't stop and consider it closed until we know the individual has been found," Frazier said. "Either way it goes, we know that all of our cases are not going to have a happy ending, but we don't stop until it's done."
