There is a local connection to a national cause.
The Eau Claire County Sheriff’s Office was honored to participate in Missing/Abducted Children Strategies planning in Alexandria, Virginia on September 12 th by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
Detective Don Henning participated in meetings over 2 days with a group of 17 detectives from across the United States who were each hand-picked by NCMEC. Large and small agencies from Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Georgia, Idaho, Montana, Texas, and Wisconsin were represented the week he participated. A similar group, including Chippewa Falls Police Lieutenant Brian Micolichek, met the week prior with an identical mission.
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As a group they discussed the differences and similarities with policies and practices for runaways and when a missing child is considered to be “endangered missing.” They discussed investigative tools that they all use and spoke about the types of non-law enforcement agencies that assist them with these types of investigations. Some of those agencies are DHS, Juvenile Intake, School Staff, Counselors,
Therapists, Other LE agencies and Primary Physicians.
The group was tasked with providing information about how law enforcement agencies identify, locate
and recover Endangered Missing Children and Juvenile Runaways, specifically techniques and practices they currently use and have found to be helpful. The group will reconvene periodically over the next
year to assist in the creation of updated training curriculum for AMBER Alert, the National Criminal
Justice Training Center (NCJTC) and NCMEC. Expenses for the involved agencies are covered by the
United States Department of Justice.
In 1984, John and Reve Walsh and other child advocates founded the National Center for Missing &
Exploited Children (NCMEC) as a private, non-profit organization to serve as the national clearinghouse
and resource center for information about missing and exploited children. In its 37 years NCMEC has
taken over 5 million phone calls on their hotline, circulated “billions” of photos of missing children, and
assisted law enforcement in the recovery of over 376,000 missing children.
Detective Henning has worked for the Eau Claire County Sheriff’s Officer for over 27 years, and as a
detective for the past 12 years. He specializes in cases involving sensitive crimes, and crimes against
children. The Sheriff’s Office is committed to the rapid and coordinated response to children who are
missing.
