The POLLY KLAAS Foundation

Father promotes safety awareness after death of his daughter

A father is on a mission to keep other kids safe after the death of his daughter. Polly Klaas was kidnapped and murdered in 1993. Now Marc Klaas is trying to give tools to parents to help find their children quickly.

Klaas travels around the country promoting safety awareness and education for parents and kids. More than a million kids have been photographed and fingerprinted because of his work.

Louisville families got that chance on Sunday at a time when an Indiana University student is still missing.

"My daughter Polly was kidnapped and murdered. She was kidnapped from her bedroom by a violent offender. It took us 65 days to find her," Klaas said.

That was 18 years ago. Now he travels the country with information and education. With plenty of families around, Novus Security sponsored a Print-a-Thon at Slugger Field before the Bats game.

Kids were digitally photographed and fingerprinted.

The information isn't stored in a database, but parents get the printout along with a DNA collection kit and safety tips.

"We thought we could make meaning out of her death by creating a legacy in her name that would be protective of children," Klaas said.

He explained that it's important to be pro-active and prepared.

"The chances of a child being kidnapped or disappearing are slight. If that does happen the more information you have at hand, the better off you are, the faster you can jump start an investigation," he said.

Klaas has closely followed the disappearance of IU student Lauren Spierer who's now been missing 52 days.

"Those days are unexplainable for the family of the missing. You find yourself in the eye of a storm with very little control of the events around you," Klaas said.

Click here for safety tips
http://www.wave3.com/story/15138441/man-on-a-mission-after-kidnap-and-murder-of-daughter

Father Of Polly Klaas Reflects On 20 Years Since Disappearance

October 2, 2013 12:23 AM

PETALUMA (CBS SF) – Tuesday marked 20 years since the kidnapping of 12-year-old Petaluma resident Polly Klaas, and her father used the grim anniversary to focus on progress that has been made in missing-child cases since then.

Polly was having a sleepover with friends at her mother’s home on Fourth Street in Petaluma on Oct. 1, 1993, when she was taken from her bedroom by a knife-wielding intruder. Her body was found two months later in a rural area near Cloverdale.

Richard Allen Davis, now 59, was convicted in 1996 of kidnapping and murdering Polly, and remains on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

A commemorative 20th anniversary event was held Tuesday afternoon at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. The event, which was not open to the public, was organized by the KlaasKids Foundation, founded by Polly’s father Marc Klaas.

“My wife and I had a really difficult time figuring how we wanted to address this milestone,” Klaas said in a phone interview Tuesday morning. “This is not something we celebrate.”

However, he said, the anniversary is significant and marks how much has been accomplished in terms of child safety since Polly’s death.

He pointed to the creation of the Amber Alert system, the enactment of Megan’s Law and other changes as significant steps forward in protecting and aiding missing and threatened children.

A short movie about Polly and the foundation was be screened at the event, and an announcement was made about new search-and-rescue efforts, Klaas said.

Klaas said Tuesday “is a very tough day” and that every year “this anniversary comes and we think about what happened back on this day.”

Despite the difficult memories, he said, marking 20 years “puts in context what we’ve done” in terms of the work of the KlaasKids Foundation.

“I think our foundation is Polly’s legacy,” he said.

The organization has organized many searches for missing people, including efforts to track down murdered nursing student Michelle Le, 26, in 2011, and the ongoing search for 15-year-old Sierra LaMar who went missing in Morgan Hill in March 2012.

Petaluma police officers, FBI agents and others who worked on Polly’s case will also be at the commemoration, Klaas said.

“We wanted to surround ourselves with people that we’ve gotten to know over the course of the past 20 years,” he said.

He said the moment he realized his daughter was dead was the “most profound” moment of his life and that he feels Polly’s absence constantly.

A separate 20th anniversary event will be held at the Petaluma Community Center on Friday by the Petaluma-based Polly Klaas Foundation, which is not affiliated with KlaasKids. The center is located at at 320 N. McDowell Blvd.

Former FBI Agent Ed Freyer, who worked on Polly’s case, is expected to attend and speak at that ceremony, which is open to the public and will include youth performances and a message of healing and hope. The event begins at 6:30 p.m.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/10/02/father-of-polly-klaas-reflects-on-20-years-since-disappearance/