Dometi Pongo, Journalist MTV News Host, "True Life Crime":
(discussed the killing of Mujey Dumbuya)
(discussed the killing of Mujey Dumbuya)
Drew: One of the things that I think that is so important as to why you guys are amplifying this story, is the fact that, young black women, when they go missing, often times, are characterized as a runaway. Or they are not given the attention when they go missing, either from the community or law enforcement that their blond-hair blue-eyed counterparts would get in terms of coming up missing.
Dometi: If there's one thing that I want folks to take away from this series, is that, you do not have to wait 48 hours to report someone missing. I always thought that was the case. It's not a steadfast. It's not written in law. So, a lot of times, with these cases, the family has an inkling, or gut feeling and folks don't take them seriously. So, they'll walk us through and say, "When I first called 911, they said X." or "When I first told the authorities, they said this. They said that." And it's usually the loved ones, that went that extra mile to connect dots, bring it to the police, and then kick things into high gear. And then from there, you see them move on behalf with more intentionality.
But that's the number one thing that I hear. Not knowing that they could raise the sense of urgency sooner. And that's the saddest thing to me.
Drew: Nobody is coming to save us but us. The people that are supposed to be coming to save us, sometimes need a push and a nudge. Possible way to start:
- calling your local radio station
- starting a hashtag
- calling black media
Dometi: Final episode includes a scam called SIM Swapping. Somebody from anywhere else in the world, can take over your cellphone's SIM card. And through that, get access to your social media accounts. The people that they target have crypto-currency accounts. So, they'll take over your cell phone, change all your passwords, get into your crypto-currency accounts and clean it out. They stole 5.2 million dollars from victims during this scandal. So, we track how they did it and how you can protect yourself.