Dozens of missing Long Island children found during 3-day rescue operation, officials say

Nearly three dozen children and teenage runaways from Long Island and Queens were reunited with their families this week after being located by local authorities as part of a missing child rescue operation, officials announced Friday.

The 34 youths located this week ranged in age from 7 to 18 and had been missing anywhere from just a few days to up to a decade, said Kevin Branzetti, co-founder and CEO of the National Child Protection Task Force, a national nonprofit that helped organize the operation, which involved 40 agencies or organizations working from a command center in the Garden City Hotel.

The relocated minors included 18 from Nassau County, 12 from Suffolk County and four from Queens, Branzetti said. Several other minors were located, officials said, but declined to return home or are now adults. 

Meanwhile, state officials said another 31 Long Island or Queens missing child cases remain open. In total, the task force looked at 70 local cases.

"Finding them is half the battle," Branzetti said at a news conference on Friday at the hotel. "Keeping them is really what we want. So our goal ... is to bring the community together to work on these kids. Missing kids are a community's problem. They are not a police problem. They are not a social services problem. They are a community problem."

The three-day Missing Child Rescue Operation, which began earlier this week, was the fourth in New York State in the past two years, which together has helped to locate 202 young people, Branzetti said. 

Typically about half of all located minors will end up missing again at some point, he said.

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said the teens located by his  department ranged from 13 to 18, and included a 17-year-old found on Thursday night in Manhattan with a known felon.

"Some may have a cognitive issue, but more importantly, some may have issues at home," Ryder said. "We put a lot of resources to go locate them originally, but then we keep the cases open until they're located."

Many of the minors, Ryder said, were located by cellphone tracking, social media or other tools, including those at the task force's disposal that may not be available to law enforcement without a subpoena.

Suffolk County Police Department Det. Lt. Frank Messana of the Criminal Intelligence Section said the missing teens were located as far away as Pennsylvania.

"The three days really allowed us to take a deep dive into these cases, and the results were incredible," Messana said.

Throughout the operation, law enforcement officials from Long Island and the NYPD worked with social workers, advocates and community organizations to understand the circumstances of each child’s disappearance, the conditions that may have contributed to their disappearance and to identify their needs after being located, officials said.

The missing youths were provided medical care, counseling, clothing, food and safe placement options, state officials said. Medical examinations and forensic interviews were provided in some cases.   

The bulk of the minors located as part of the task force operations left home on their own, said Office of Children and Family Services Commissioner DaMia Harris-Madden, although typically some are found to have been exploited or trafficked. 

"The goal here is to ensure that our children are brought home, but also that they are supported with concrete resources so that they don't either run away again or they don't go missing again," Harris-Madden said.

A total of 10,629 children younger than 18 were reported missing to police across New York State in 2025, with 94% reported as runaways, according to state statistics.

Last year, police closed 10,672 cases involving children who  were reported missing in 2025 or earlier, officials said.

At the end of 2025, there were 1,079 active missing children cases statewide.

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.