Giving Chase When Kids Run Away

Estela Lopes, 19, and Jackie Guerrero, 18, said they ran away repeatedly because they got involved with alcohol and drugs. They wanted to avoid parents who they feared would punish them.

"The first few times, I'd get tired of being in the streets," said Lopes.

Lopes said she ran away from her mother's Wheaton home and then group homes for teens nine times, starting when she was 14. She would get caught and then run again. "I felt I needed to do drugs to forget about embarrassing things I did. I knew if I went home I couldn't continue the drugs," she said.

Guerrero said she ran away from her mother's Rockville home 10 times, starting when she was 15. The young women, who shared hotel rooms paid for by men and slept in parks, are in a program for troubled teens at Kennedy's church in Prince George's County. Kennedy, who met them as runaway cases, said both girls are turning their lives around.

Kennedy, who has been working with runaways for nine of his 22 years as an officer, and Palardy said they sympathize with parents about the obstacles they face in getting help for their runaway children. Even minors can't be forced into counseling or drug treatment without a judge's order, the detectives said.

Aquilla Rogers, who lives in Montgomery Village, said she is frustrated about what she believes is a lack of options to help her 14-year-old daughter, Adreanna, an honors student who has run away four times. This time, she said, her daughter has been missing for more than a month.

A county support group did nothing but expose her daughter to more experienced runaways, Rogers said, and Adreanna ran away again after her second meeting.

"I've basically been told there's no help unless I have $50,000 to send her to a private [drug treatment] program," Rogers said.

She said she's worried her daughter will turn to prostitution to support herself.

"Her answer to everybody was that she ran away because she wanted to have fun," Rogers said. "She said there were too many rules at home. . . . You worry every day, but at this point I can just pray."

A Tall Caseload

Palardy's cubicle in the Family Crimes Division in a red brick office complex off East Gude Drive in Rockville is full of neat stacks of paper-clipped packets. Each packet represents a missing child. Upon arriving at the office on a recent Monday morning, eight new cases greeted her.

"This, unfortunately, is my open [cases] pile," Palardy said, pointing to the tallest stack, six inches tall.