{"id":91276,"date":"2025-12-21T07:26:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T07:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/91276\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T07:26:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T07:26:26","slug":"authorities-recover-more-than-40-missing-children-during-12-day-operation-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/91276\/","title":{"rendered":"Authorities recover more than 40 missing children during 12-day operation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2025\/12\/18\/43-critically-missing-children-recovered-during-operation-northern-lights-north-florida\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2025\/12\/18\/43-critically-missing-children-recovered-during-operation-northern-lights-north-florida\/\">WCTV<\/a>\/Gray News) \u2014 Officials in Florida said they found and rescued 43 missing children during a recent recovery mission.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The 12-day mission, labeled Operation Northern Lights, was led by the U.S. Marshals Service and other agencies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Officials said all the children were considered critically missing, a classification used to describe children who may be at risk of violent crime, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, crime exposure or domestic violence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">EN ESPA\u00d1OL | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telemundonashville.com\/2025\/12\/19\/operacin-de-12-das-termina-con-el-hallazgo-y-rescate-de-43-nios-desaparecidos\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.telemundonashville.com\/2025\/12\/19\/operacin-de-12-das-termina-con-el-hallazgo-y-rescate-de-43-nios-desaparecidos\/\">Operaci\u00f3n de 12 d\u00edas termina con el hallazgo y rescate de 43 ni\u00f1os desaparecidos<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Some of the children were believed to have been taken across multiple counties and even state lines before being found.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Sgt. Rachel Buell with the Leon County Sheriff\u2019s Office said the agencies began by compiling a list of those who were critically missing and then splitting the cases up by jurisdiction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Officers went door-to-door, scoured social media and made phone calls, among other efforts, to narrow down where the children could be.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Buell said when a child goes missing, there is an 80% chance the child will be a victim of human trafficking, so in these cases time is crucial.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cYou would think that finding kids probably wouldn\u2019t be that hard, they\u2019re kids. But in all reality, they\u2019re harder to find sometimes than the adults,\u201d Buell said. \u201cFinding them before they find themselves in situations that they can\u2019t get themselves out of is important to us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Nine people were arrested for their involvement in these cases, and future charges are expected, ranging from human trafficking to child endangerment and custodial interference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Officials said they plan to continue recovery missions like this to help bring more children back home with their families.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 WCTV via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Gray News) \u2014 Officials in Florida said they found and rescued 43 missing children during a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[28,15596,32200,47871,47869,48813,48814,232,234,233,16057],"class_list":{"0":"post-91276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-human-trafficking","10":"tag-missing-children","11":"tag-missing-kids","12":"tag-operation-northern-lights","13":"tag-rescued","14":"tag-saved","15":"tag-tallahassee","16":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","17":"tag-tallahassee-news","18":"tag-us-marshals"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}