Updated Poster For Colton Barrera

Another glaring example of inaction by Kansas authorities. This information was never terribly publicized in 2008, when Colton Barrera disappeared, because police thought he had run away from home. A serious problem with that logic, and with the ineffective police work that accompanies it, is that it does not matter whether a missing child has run away from home, or disappeared by some other means; a missing child is in danger either way. With each passing hour, opportunities to find Colton alive were lost in 2008, and with each passing year, chances of finding him at all grow slimmer. Meanwhile, folks in Russell who know what happened continue to excuse violence and protect criminals, never caring about the law.

Colton Barrera Still Needs To Be Found

Colton Barrera, the seventeen year old boy who disappeared in Russell, Kansas four years ago, is still missing and his case needs more attention. The media and law enforcement apparently cannot get the advertisements and endorsements to support telling the general public that this young man is missing, so I will run his picture again. Here is a link to the Facebook page that has been set up for discussion of his case and to spread the word. Four years is a long time for a family to look for a missing child.

 

The Kansas Media Has Ignored Colton Ross Barrera

Colton Ross Barrera, seventeen, disappeared from Russell, Kansas, on September 26 of 2008. While I had been in Kansas for about a year, I did not hear about Colton. Neither did quite a few other people. Colton had made plans to go to the skate park in Russell, and was supposed to have been dropped off there by a friend. He had told his family that he would call the same friend for a ride home from the skate park. The last place anyone actually remembers seeing Colton is actually at the local high school. He never called his friend for a ride home.

Why didn't I hear about Colton Barrera, and about the fact that he is missing? I would have been very happy to print up flyers and try to help find him. Aside from some unpublicized vigils, what efforts have been made to find this boy? I would like to know. His profile appears in in every missing persons data base that I have checked, including the Charley Project and NCMEC, just nothing in local newspapers or websites. It looks as if the local police and the Kansas Bureau of Investigations wrote Colton off as a runaway and declined to search! Did they even question the last person to see Colton?

Colton's age progressed picture is on the upper left corner of this post, and here is the Facebook page dedicated to finding him. Below is a missing persons poster of Colton, with contact information.

A Little Boy Got Killed By A Train Today

What a sad day for the family of a nine year old boy in Russell, Kansas today. While playing too close to the train tracks, he was killed by a freight train going from Denver, Colorado to Salina, Kansas. He was pronouced dead at the scene.

Perhaps, in addition to using extra caution in the future and realizing how dangerous being too close to railroad tracks can be, and in addition to making sure all children from now on are never allowed to play too close to train tracks, anyone who reads about this on the internet can be gentle when posting comments about this. This incident is not even a day old, and I have already seen some comments posted under stories about it by people who do not realize that this little boy's parents woke up this morning with a son, and will go to bed without one tonight.