Michigan State Police cleared up confusion and misconceptions on Wednesday, regarding a one-day sweep by carried out by several agencies last month that safely recovered 123 children in Wayne County, Detroit News reports.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, The U.S. Marshals Service, Michigan State Police, and numerous other agencies participated in “Operation MISafeKid,” a one-day operation carried out on September 25. The event consisted of a “sweep” in an attempt to find missing children. At least 123 kids have been found, according to press release provided by the U.S. Marshals Service.

“Out of 301 files of missing children, 123 were identified and recovered safely during the operation. All 123 children were physically located and interviewed — standard protocol for the Michigan State Police.”

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The report did not indicate that out of the 123 children found, only four of them were actively missing. According to Michigan State Police Lt. Michael Shaw, most of the kids had already returned home, but their parents or legal guardians never updated the police and the cases remained open as “missing children” in police computers.

Shaw said that many of the children were homeschooled children. Some of the kids were runaways.

Three of the children have been identified as possible victims of sex trafficking, while another child, a 14-year-old, was reportedly abandoned by his mother when his father went to prison. The boy hadn’t eaten in three days when authorities located him.

“The mom just left him behind,” Shaw explained. “He was placed in foster care in the Saginaw area but he ran away and went to his old house looking for his mom. The house was vacant, so he just stayed there. “He was making his bed every day, but he wasn’t going to school. We got him to a place where he could get proper food and shelter.”

Meanwhile, Shaw said around 200 other children remain missing and they get thousands of reports about runaways each month. They plan to continue to look for all of them.

We get more than 1,000 runaway complaints per month,” he said. “Most of those who are still missing are runaways. The investigators will continue looking for them.”

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[Feature Photo: Pixabay]