Andre Phillips is only 15 years old. He went missing from the Bronx, NY in September 2026. Makye Myers Koo, also 15, has been listed as missing from Dobbs Ferry since August 30. Kaleb Sprinkle, 13, disappeared from Dobbs Ferry on August 19. That same day, about 75 miles away, Arthur Uhl, 16, was reported missing from Liberty, New York. Their names are among those appearing in missing-child cases across New York, and their faces deserve more than a scroll on a social media timeline or two.
The numbers show just how large the problem is. According to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, 10,629 children under 18 were reported missing to police across the state in 2025. Ninety-four percent of those reports involved children classified as runaways. By the end of that year, 1,079 missing-child cases remained active statewide. Those numbers are important because the word “runaway” should never become another way of saying that a child does not need to be found.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reported that it assisted law enforcement with 29,568 missing-child cases nationwide in 2024, with 91 percent of those children recovered. In 2025, NCMEC received reports involving 22,498 missing children between the ages of 15 and 17 and another 7,270 between 12 and 14. Behind those numbers are bedrooms sitting empty, with unanswered phone calls and families waiting for someone to walk back through the door…