First 72 hours are crucial

Well, we are way beyond first 72 hours. We are in the week 7 of disappearance of Mariam Makhniashvili, Torontonian for only three months, 17 years old at the time she vanished on her way to school located in quiet neighborhood of Forest Hill.

At first, her disappearance was treated with disbelief that anything bad could have happened in such a nice neighborhood. It was not the only bias surrounding this case. Some tried to implicate the family in her disappearance, digging out father's history while living in States, contemplating that, since there were no witnesses who saw her and her brother George walking to school on the morning of September 14Th, that she had not even walked to school that morning. Media coverage was mostly based on "breaking news", rather than doing investigative journalism and look for clues and connections. It took school officials at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute three days to let their student population know about their school mate disappearance. It took law enforcement the whole week to come to the school and talk to students. It took almost a month for backpack to be found, although it was in a clear view of many individuals, and well within 5 km radius, the radius that police described as the area that needed to be searched by residents. Individuals who saw the backpack sitting for more than three weeks behind the building with the address 101 Roehampton did not make connection with the missing girl, because either they were not aware of her disappearance, or because they just did not bother taking a closer look. Typical bystander pshychology. Someone else is responsible. Find out about this phenomenon, read about Kitty Genovese whose screams were heard by hundreds of people, yet no one called police because everyone thought that someone else already did that. Assumptions, biases, delays, sloppy reporting in both law enforcement bulletins (one of police bulletins claims that Mariam and George walked on Vesta Drive on their way to school, that threw some people following closely this case totally off since walking on Vesta Drive would be detour and no one could find explanation why would they walk on Vesta Drive, it turned out later that this was incorrect), and media ( the list is too long ). And last but not least: it took more than six weeks for law enforcement to check library computers. It was said in early reports in media that Mariam frequented libraries in Toronto. Only logical was that she spent more time in the closest one: Forest Hill Library. When the author of this blog visited the library on October 13, 2009 and spoke with the librarian at the information desk, she could not find any new facts or eye witness accounts, because librarian claimed that she would be, in her own words, "the worst witness", because she does not remember people's faces. Moreover, she said that she could not remember seeing Mariam because of her apparent lack of ability to differenciate among teenagers. "They all look the same to me", she said. Mariam's 18th birthday was yesterday. Beautiful, smart, young person, who is missing now for more than six weeks, while search for her tells us how incapable as society we are to break free from our biases and our assumptions, and make use of the first 72 hours.

Photo: Forest Hill Library, Toronto