National City Police are asking the public for help finding a 15-year-old girl who has been missing since last Friday evening. Serenity Garcia was last seen around 5 pm at a commercial center on Otay Lakes Road in the Eastlake neighborhood of Chula Vista, roughly 10 miles east of National City Police headquarters.
According to a request for assistance issued by the National City Police, Garcia is a Hispanic female who stands about 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighs approximately 108 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair. She was last seen wearing a gray hooded sweater and black leggings, and she was carrying a black backpack marked with a pink shark mouth logo. The shopping center where she was last seen, at 2220 Otay Lakes Road, is a suburban retail plaza that includes a Goodwill store and a PostalAnnex, according to Goodwill Industries of San Diego County.
Missing Juvenile https://t.co/cb4Y3n7xIB
— NATIONAL CITY POLICE (@NATIONALCITYPD) August 23, 2026
National City Police issued the request for assistance locating the runaway juvenile on Saturday and posted the missing juvenile alert publicly on Sunday. The department is asking anyone with information on Garcia's whereabouts to call its non-emergency line at 619-336-4400, or 911 in an emergency.
Why Two South Bay Departments May Be Involved
Garcia's case highlights how missing-person investigations often cross city lines in San Diego's South Bay. National City, the second-oldest city in San Diego County, is home to the department leading the investigation, headquartered at 1200 National City Boulevard, according to the City of National City. But Garcia was last seen in Chula Vista, a neighboring municipality of more than 275,000 residents that borders National City to the north and often coordinates with area law enforcement on public safety matters, per background compiled by Wikipedia.
Under California Penal Code § 14211, officers who take a missing person report for someone last seen outside their own jurisdiction are required to give the reporting party contact information for both the department covering the person's residence and the department with authority over the last-seen location, according to legal analysis from The Bulldog Law. The same statute mandates that police accept and act on missing person and runaway reports immediately, without any waiting period, and prioritize them over property crime calls. Reports involving missing youth under 21 must be entered into state and federal databases within two hours.
Runaway Cases Make Up Most Missing Youth Reports
It remains an open question whether Chula Vista Police or local transit officials have reviewed surveillance footage from the Eastlake shopping center or nearby transit lines for leads on Garcia's movements after she was last seen. Cases like hers are common in scale even if each one is urgent: law enforcement agencies across California recorded 60,438 missing children reports in 2025, according to state tracking data compiled by the California Department of Justice.
Nationally, runaway youth make up the majority of missing children cases, and they face heightened risk of physical violence, homelessness, and sex trafficking while missing, according to the National Runaway Safeline. The FBI's National Crime Information Center logged 359,094 missing children entries nationwide in 2022, with runaway cases accounting for the vast majority of those records, per historical data cited by United Way of Connecticut.
Families and runaway youth themselves can reach the National Runaway Safeline at 1-800-RUNAWAY, a 24/7 federally designated crisis line offering confidential counseling, shelter referrals, and free bus tickets home for youth ages 12 to 21 through its Home Free program. Anyone with information specifically about Serenity Garcia's whereabouts is asked to contact National City Police at 619-336-4411.
