Police with the University of California San Francisco say a 22-year-old man who had been with a 13-year-old Mendocino County girl found Sunday afternoon after being missing for two days has been arrested and taken into custody.
The girl, from Fort Bragg, was found Sunday evening at the San Francisco Ferry Building on the Embarcadero. A statement late Sunday night from UCSF said the girl was in the company of the 22-year-old man, who was taken into custody Sunday night by officers with the San Francisco and UCSF police departments.
The girl has been safely reunited with her family, the UCSF statement said.
She was first reported missing about 3:30 p.m. Friday near the University of California San Francisco campus off Third Street in San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood. An family member's Facebook page said the girl's family members were at the UCSF Madison Clinic for Pediatric Diabetes in Mission Bay Friday for treatment of a family member recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.
The girl was found with the help of local citizens who had seen her photograph. Photos of the girl were spread widely on social media and in the news media. And Cold Case Mendocino, a Mendocino County group that bills itself as "citizen investigators," posted on its web site Saturday that its members spoke with a witness who said the girl may have met up with a man when she was in San Francisco.
A UCSF spokeswoman said Sunday night that, given the ongoing police investigation and because a minor is at its focus, the university declined further comment on the arrest. "We will provide additional information as soon as we are able to do so," spokeswoman Lorna Fernandes said in the statement.
