COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — As hundreds of thousands of central Ohioans flock to downtown Columbus for the city’s annual Independence Day celebration, police will set up shop to locate children who stray from their families during the Red, White & BOOM! festivities.
The Columbus Division of Police will operate five missing children’s booths at the city’s 40th annual Red, White & BOOM! event on Friday — poised to welcome more than 500,000 people — to equip youth attendees with bracelets to help officers reunite lost kids with their parents, police said in a news release Tuesday.
Beginning at 2:30 p.m., detectives with the Special Victims Bureau will encourage parents of young children to stop by a booth, fill out a registration form and pick up an identification bracelet for their child, according to police.
Police said the missing person booths will be located at the following Downtown locations:
- West Long Street at the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks
- West Street, south of Marconi Boulevard
- West Broad Street at North Front Street
- 200 Civic Center Driver
- Washington Boulevard and West Rich Street, across from COSI
Police also encouraged families attending Red, White & BOOM!, which organizers said is the largest Independence Day celebration in the Midwest, to take a photo of their child at the festival in order to help police locate them in the event they are separated.
