Jahnay Bryan has been missing in L.A. for 2 months. Why don’t police have an update?

Los Angeles Times
Clara Harter
December 11, 2024

Former state Sen. Steven Bradford steps out into the bright and blazing Westlake sun. Wearing a dark gray suit and armed with a roll of tape, he affixes a poster to the side of a streetlight. It reads: Jahnay Bryan, 23, missing from Los Angeles since Oct. 16.

The longtime politician shakes his head. Two months is far too long for a young Black woman to be missing without any word of progress on solving her case, he says.

“When Black young women and children disappear, resources are not committed to find them,” he asserted to The Times. “We need to ask ourselves, why is that?

Black youth make up about 40% of all cases of missing people in America but just 15% of the country’s overall youth population. That disparity prompted Bradford to author legislation in 2023 to create the Ebony Alert system to help law enforcement find missing Black youths ages 12 to 25.

An Ebony Alert was issued for Bryan on Nov. 19, noting that she was last seen near the 2000 block of West 8th Street.

Several weeks later, there is no update available on her case, according to an LAPD spokesperson.

Fed up with the lack of progress, Bryan’s family members and Bradford joined forces with volunteers from the Black and Missing Foundation to hold a community search event in hopes of gleaning a clue that might lead to her whereabouts.

On Tuesday, the group of volunteers canvassed the neighborhood where Bryan was last seen, taping up posters, handing out fliers and talking to shopkeepers and passersby.

“It feels incredibly eerie to be standing in a place where someone last reported seeing my sister,” said Jahque Bryan-Gooden at the start of the search. “I’m glad to be surrounded by community and no longer feel alone trying to find answers.”

Bryan graduated from Cornell University in 2023 before moving back home with her mother in eastern Pennsylvania. There, her sister said, Bryan gradually cut off all communication with friends and family.

This fall, Bryan moved to Los Angeles, where she last communicated with her ex-boyfriend in October via email. Bryan-Gooden remains hopeful she will find her sister. Although they hadn’t spoken for about a year before her disappearance, she says she misses her deeply.

“She is unwavering in her values,” Bryan-Gooden said. “She approaches any situation that’s challenging with confidence and determination.”

Bryan-Gooden reported her sister missing on Nov. 13, and an Ebony Alert was issued on Nov. 19.

Bradford said law enforcement is capable of issuing an alert for a missing person instantaneously,” but added that “it seems like there’s always a delay when it comes to people of color, and specifically African Americans.” The LAPD declined to comment on why it took six days to issue Bryan’s alert.

Bradford also pointed to the stark contrast in how law enforcement and the media responded to the case of Hannah Koyabashi — who was also reported missing in Los Angeles in November — and that of Bryan.

Kobayashi’s disappearance received international media coverage. Last week, LAPD Police Chief Jim McDonnell held a news conference and announced that a police department discovered she had voluntarily crossed the border to Mexico.

Kobayashi “disappeared almost in the exact same time frame,” he said. “How does one race rise to the level of national attention and Miss Bryan’s case barely gets a whimper?”

Bryan’s case has been written about by KTLA, NBC and The Times. A Google search shows more than 100 news articles have been published about Kobayashi since she was reported missing on Nov. 11.

Natalie Wilson, co-founder of the Black and Missing Foundation, said that media attention can play a key role in helping solve missing persons cases.

“Many times, a reporter will reach out to law enforcement to get an update on the case, and then you start seeing traction, you start seeing them reaching out to the family, conducting interviews and searches,” she said. “That’s why media coverage is so important.”

Increasing attention to missing persons cases was a key reason Bradford pushed for the establishment of the Ebony Alert system.

Since it was enacted in California in January, 32 alerts have been issued and 27 young Black people found, Bradford said. States including Massachusetts and Tennessee are now looking into enacting their own version of the system.

Still, there are many instances in which a young Black person is eligible for an Ebony Alert and one is never issued, he said. Often, missing Black youths are victims of sex trafficking and are classified as juvenile prostitutes, he said.

“Instead of listing them as abducted, they are listed as runaways,” he said.

Bryan-Gooden said she was worried her sister might have been a victim of sex trafficking. Several weeks ago, someone called the phone number on Bryan’s missing persons poster and said they had seen her in Los Angeles living with someone whom they believed to be a pimp.

“When I heard that, my heart dropped,” she said.

Bryan-Gooden is, however, feeling a renewed sense of hope following the community search on Tuesday. She said two shopkeepers reported recently seeing someone who matched Bryan’s description.

Anyone with information on Bryan’s whereabouts is asked to contact Det. Avalos in the LAPD Missing Persons Unit at (213) 996-1800 or leave an anonymous tip at (800) 222-8477. The Black and Missing Foundation also has an anonymous tip line on its website.

Photo credit: William Liang / For The Times