Desperate Search On For Endangered 12-Year-Old LA Girl

LOS ANGELES, CA — A 12-year-old Los Angeles girl missing for months is believed to be in danger, and her family, police and her teachers are asking for help finding her and bringing her home safely.

Hazel Palacio went missing on Feb. 28 in the Downtown Los Angeles area, said Sarah Kim, a school psychologist with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

"We're desperate for any leads, or help with not letting Hazel's case go cold," Kim said.

Hazel is a talented painter, who volunteered her time working with special needs children even as her own family battled homelessness, according to her mother and Kim.

"She’s like any preteen. She loved watching Youtube videos, and Tik Tok," Kim said. "She is an amazing painter, just a very sweet and amazing little girl."

Hazel's mother Crystal Davila describes her middle child as the protective mother hen of her four siblings.

"Of all my kids she is very motherly-like to her siblings. 'Mom says do this do that,' she would tell them," Davila said. "I thought me and her had a very open relationship. We would talk about everything."

But Hazel changed dramatically last fall and tried to hurt herself, said her mother. Davila discovered her daughter had been attacked by human traffickers. The family was forced to flee their home in fear for their lives after they sought to save their daughter, propelling them back into homelessness, she said.

On March 31, a family friend spotted Hazel at Slauson and Vermont avenues in the South Los Angeles area. She may have been with a man in a white car.

Hazel's case was reported as a missing persons report to the Los Angeles Police Department and to human trafficking investigators with the LAPD, the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Getting information about Hazel's case from investigators has been a source of frustration for her mother and teachers. Uncertain if Hazel's case is being treated as a priority, they've begun a grassroots effort to enlist the community in finding the missing 12-year-old.

The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that investigators are looking for Hazel.

"It's kind of unbelievable to me just how challenging it is for the mother of a missing child to get any kind of update," Kim said.

For her part, Davila said she's not giving up hope, but she's losing faith in investigators.

"I feel like they are just taking their time. I don’t feel like they are on it," she said. "It’s very stressful. I just want my daughter back. I want her to get help."

Hazel is Hispanic, 5 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 120 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts is urged to call 800-THE-LOST.