Almost exactly a year ago, the strangled body of 16-year-old Chanel Petro-Nixon was discovered in front of 212 Kingston Ave. in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, just over three days after the honor student left her Fulton St. apartment on Father's Day in 2006 to apply for work at a nearby restaurant. Chanel's murder might have been prevented if New York's Finest had the resources and public support for a policy of mounting fast, aggressive searches for every missing teen and young adult. According to the NYPD, only about 6,200 people are reported missing every year, a small enough number that each one should be taken more seriously. More on that in a minute: first, another appeal for help in this case. Chanel vanished after leaving her home at 1605 Fulton St.

She was not sexually abused and her body showed no signs of torture or restraint by rope or wire. Chanel was killed less than 24 hours before her body was found on June 22, 2006, and her Air Jordan Retro sneakers and Sanyo Sprint cell phone were missing.  The police haven't announced an arrest or a suspect yet, meaning the murderer of this innocent child remains on the loose. Anybody with information should call (800) 577-TIPS, a hotline where you don't have to leave your name. The case has sparked a movement to take back the streets of Central Brooklyn: Well over $30,000 has been raised in reward money for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Chanel's killer.

Next Sunday, a group of correction officers and cops will square off in a basketball match at Boys and Girls High School to raise money for Chanel's reward fund. Tickets are $10 each and the first game starts at 3 p.m. Last year, the same officers raised $5,700. Local news organizations and national shows including "Nancy Grace" and "America's Most Wanted" have aired multiple stories on Chanel's murder, helping to keep the story before the public.

The Rev. Al Sharpton has used his radio show and half a dozen rallies, including one in Harlem yesterday, to urge community residents to come forward with information. Last week, about 100 residents joined a "stop the violence" march down Fulton St. organized by activist Taharka Robinson. The community has stepped up. Now all of New York needs to rethink the way we respond when a young person has gone missing. Right now, parents have little recourse beyond filing a report at the local precinct - where cops routinely treat such cases as false alarms by kids hanging out with friends. Chanel's parents, for instance, went to the 81st Precinct, frantically explaining that their daughter, a churchgoing honor student, would never simply run away. It didn't matter.

The cop who took the report still typed that Chanel was a "runaway." The parents were left to mount their own search, right up to when her body was found. Something similar happened in the 2003 case of Romona Moore, a student at Hunter College who was abducted off a Brooklyn street near her home by a pair of animals named Kayson Pearson and Troy Hendrix. Over the course of four days, the pair raped and tortured Romona before beating her to death with a barbell and dumping her mutilated body in a vacant building. We need a response level comparable to the Fire Department, which answers countless false alarms every day because we can't take the risk of ignoring a real one.

In the name of Chanel and Romona, we need to make it happen!

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