5-Year-Old Girl Abducted by Three Men, Amber Alert Issued

The alert was issued on the morning of May 7 for Maleah Davis of Houston Houston Police

A 5-year-old girl was reportedly abducted by three men in Texas, prompting police to issue an Amber Alert.

The alert was issued on the morning of May 5 for Maleah Davis of Houston. She was last seen wearing a blue zip-up jacket, blue jeans, sneakers, and had a pink bow in her hair, said police, ABC News reported.

Her stepfather told police that the three men assaulted him and left him and his 2-year-old son behind, while Maleah was abducted.

She was last seen at around 9 p.m. local time on Saturday night.

Maleah was reported to be with three unknown male suspects in a 2010 blue Chevrolet truck, Fox8 reported. The license plate numbers were not disclosed.

They were last seen on the Southwest Freeway near State Highway 6 in Sugar Land, which is about 20 miles south of Houston, police said, ABC reported.

The motive in the kidnapping is not known.

Anyone who has seen Davis can call the Houston Police Department at [phone] or 911.

Missing Children

There were 464,324 missing children reported in the FBI’s National Crime Information Center in 2017, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Under federal law, when a child is reported missing to law enforcement they must be entered into the database. In 2016, there were 465,676 entries.

Reve Walsh and John Walsh speak during The National Center For Missing And Exploited Children, the Fraternal Order of the Police and the Justice Department’s 16th Annual Congressional Breakfast at The Liaison Capitol Hill Hotel in Washington on May 18, 2011. Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images

“This number represents reports of missing children. That means if a child runs away multiple times in a year, each instance would be entered into NCIC separately and counted in the yearly total. Likewise, if an entry is withdrawn and amended or updated, that would also be reflected in the total,” the center noted.

In 2017, the center said it assisted officers and families with the cases of more than 27,000 missing children. In those cases, 91 percent were endangered runaways, and 5 percent were family abductions.

About one in seven children reported missing to the center in 2017 were likely victims of child sex trafficking.