A 12-year-old Oakland boy named Kierre White vanished Wednesday near the busy intersection of 25th Street and San Pablo Avenue, prompting California authorities to issue an Ebony Alert in hopes of finding him. White was last seen at roughly 12:30 p.m. Wednesday and was believed to be traveling on foot, wearing a black shirt, black jeans, and black shoes. He was located at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The California Highway Patrol issued the alert for the boy in Alameda County, according to KRON4. White is described as standing 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighing about 140 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Before White was located at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, CHP had asked anyone with information about his whereabouts to call the agency directly.
White was last seen near San Pablo Avenue and 25th Street, a stretch that sits on a commercial corridor bordering Oakland's Hoover-Foster and Northgate neighborhoods near Uptown Oakland, as detailed by CommercialSearch. The area is a mixed-use district with nearby bus routes and artist studios, giving searchers a dense urban landscape to cover as they tried to trace his path on foot.
How the State's Ebony Alert System Works
Ebony Alerts are coordinated through the California Highway Patrol's Emergency Notification and Tactical Alert Center, known as ENTAC, which operates around the clock out of Sacramento. Investigating agencies contact the state coordinator, and they review activation criteria together; alerts can be activated regionally, according to the California Highway Patrol. The center oversees six separate emergency alert programs on behalf of local departments across the state. Once activated, alerts may be distributed through highway electronic signs, television and radio broadcasts, and social media. CHP also uses hyperlinks in Wireless Emergency Alerts.
The system was created under Senate Bill 673, authored by State Sen. Steven Bradford, and took effect on January 1, 2024, becoming the nation's first public alert program dedicated specifically to missing Black youth and young women ages 12 to 25, per CalMatters. The law covers missing Black people ages 12 to 25, and law enforcement can consider unexplained or suspicious circumstances, disability, and possible trafficking when evaluating whether to issue an alert.
Why the Alert Exists
Advocacy groups including the Black and Missing Foundation have long noted that missing Black children were historically and disproportionately labeled by law enforcement as runaways, a classification that automatically excluded them from AMBER Alert eligibility and often limited how aggressively police pursued their cases. CalMatters reported that Black children accounted for about 39% of missing children in 2022, compared with 12.4% of the total U.S. population.
When Governor Gavin Newsom signed the Ebony Alert legislation in October 2023, CHP had raised concerns about public alert fatigue.
The case came amid other recent Ebony Alert cases across Northern California, including a Sacramento teen missing for weeks.
