September 10, 2008
Cops Confirm Missing Teacher was Recently Seen
Yesterday, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said that 23-year-old missing teacher Hannah Upp, last seen on August 29, was spotted at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store. According to the Daily News, Kelly said, "We know that because a classmate saw her and approached her in the store," and then police checked tapes.
One source tells the Post that apparently Upp was "petrified of going back" to Thurgood Marshall Academy, the Harlem school where she taught, and "wigged out and went AWOL...We think family members might know where she is and they're just trying to talk her off whatever ledge she's on."
The police also suspect Upp may be bipolar and stopped taking her medication, though her family denies it. The additional realization that Upp is also part of the freegans--those who scavenge through garbage at stores and restaurants for food (she was even photographed in a July Daily News story)--led a News source to say, "We want to find her and see if she is all right. She, right now, is off the grid. If she did join the ranks of this new kind of hobo, we need to know."
Upp's family is hopeful and simply wants her to return home. The United Federation of Teachers is still offering a $10,000 reward.
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A $10,000 reward for someone who isn't even missing? Hannah, if you're reading this, let me walk you in and I'll split it with you 50/50.
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Scavenging for fucking vegan garbage? I thought teacher's salaries were improving.
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girl should of went to teach in a immigrant neighborhood in queens or brooklyn, much safer and better kids.
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and a big what the hell is wrong with white people who could afford food to go dumpster diving for food????????
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case closed
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glad nothing bad happened to her...she should tell people she's okay so they can get back to their lives and stop looking for her.
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You know, the Teaching Fellows always sounded like a bad program to me. Lets rush you through an accelerated training program. We'll pay you at first, but then you owe us a few years in an extra-challenging school.
Sounds like a good recipe for failure. Not everybody is cut out for teaching. At the primary level it's all about classroom control.
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Good news that nothing terrible happened to her. Though if I were her family or friends, I'd be pissed that she pulled this disappearing act.
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"We think family members might know where she is and they're just trying to talk her off whatever ledge she's on."
Really, is this the terminology we're gonna use? If this source is a cop, he should definitely know better.
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This story shouldn't get any more attention. She is not a missing person or an abduction case, just a girl confused, scared, and running. If she had the time to go check her email or whatever but not call her family then I wouldn't worry about her. This is a family matter not a national news matter. A $10,000 award to find a person who was spotted already at a computer, this is just stupid. Sadly, MWWS (missing white woman syndrome).
Chioma Gray is a missing 16 year old black girl and hasn't been seen since December 13, 2007.
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This isn't the first time one of these idealistic, young teaching fellows has cracked. Programs like Teach For America lure these kids in fresh from the Kool-Aid party, hastily "train" them and then dump them into the worst schools imaginable with no backup. Anything goes wrong and it's YOUR fault as usual, whitey.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_1_how_i_joined.html
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Like a said yesterday, check Union Square. She may have a cat or six by her side and a cardboard sign.
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Seems one could just wait around outside the apple store for her to show up again and claim the reward. I'm confused about the "she's bipolar and off her meds" which is a rather definitive statement vs "she may be showing signs of bipolar" If she really is bipolar and off her meds, I don't see why the family would deny it nor do I see why the police would state that she is off meds she may never have been on. Hannah, call your mom, she's worried about you.
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Also, I'm sure the cops know the details of it and aren't making it public, but why didn't the classmate who approached her just follow her and call the cops? Was the classmate unaware that she was missing and what did they talk about? If she's gone freegan, why doesn't a fellow freegan drop a line to somebody and just say "hey, she's with us and she's ok" or something like that. Too much weirdness and disconnect between the family and the cops.
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"why didn't the classmate who approached her just follow her and call the cops?"
Obviously the classmate did call the cops; that's why they checked the tapes at the Apple store. Follow her? Why? They had a conversation, and likely she said she was OK and wanted to be left alone. She's an adult, she hasn't committed any crime, she should be able to do whatever she wants to do. We can think she should contact her family, but we really don't know anything about that relationship and don't know why she might be choosing not to do that. But again, that should be her choice.
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They had a conversation, and likely she said she was OK and wanted to be left alone.
Then withdraw the reward!
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berniegoetz: i actually read that long article, a lot of it is similar to my time teaching in the bronx. it all comes down to bad parenting.
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So she got chewed up and spit out by high school kids in Harlem, she isn't cut out to be a teacher obviously but why disappear like this?
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Who is cut out to be a teacher in Harlem?
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She didn't disappear, she dropped out. Like her fellow Freegans, she'll probably end up in Vermont or Santa Fe to fulfill her ascetic desires. Those kids are way messed up and they travel...