About 38 percent of missing children in America are Black, yet their cases receive disproportionately less media coverage and law enforcement attention than missing white children, according to the Black and Missing Foundation. The initial days of the investigation into Jaliek Rainwalker’s disappearance saw his case treated as a runaway by both law enforcement and his parents. But after 48 hours, Cambridge-Greenwich Police Chief George Bell began to doubt he was dealing with a runaway. 

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