Speaking about the lack of national media coverage, the Baltimore Police spokesman said, "Birds are falling out of the sky in Arkansas and two headed calves, and this girl may lose her life." "We are doing everything we can," Baltimore police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told AOL News, noting that more than 35 detectives are working on the case, as well as two teams from the FBI. Question of Double-Standard Arises 
 
 The dissappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway while on vacation in Aruba nearly six years ago sparked a media frenzy. The search continues for Phylicia Simone Barnes, a star high school student from North Carolina who went missing in Baltimore last week. The 16-year-old honor student from Monroe, N.C., was visiting her half-sister when she disappeared three days after Christmas. "I was going to turn this city upside down to find my child, and I was going to leave no stone unturned," Russell Barnes, Phylicia's father, told ABC News. The 5 foot 8 inch straight-A, African-American student has been missing ever since. Police told ABC News today that they obtained additional security video from the area surrounding the apartment, but it has yet to shed new light on the case. "Our goal is to find our sweet beautiful sister, daughter, niece, friend - that's what she is to everyone," said Phylicia's father, Russell Barnes. "You see other cases that get attention, other kids that go missing and its immediately up on television and you know, I know there's frustration," said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. "The FBI's Baltimore branch confirmed to AOL News that it is assisting in the investigation.
– She's a beautiful, straight-A high school student who's vanished from a big American city, triggering a massive police hunt joined by the FBI. And yet the case of 16-year-old Phylicia Barnes has been slow to percolate to the national radar, complains a Baltimore police spokesman. "I can't see how this case is any different from Natalee Holloway," he said. "Is it because she's African-American? Why?" Authorities are looking for all the help they can get in locating Barnes, a North Carolina resident who disappeared while visiting her college-aged sister in Baltimore on Dec. 28, reports ABC News. She left the apartment, apparently to go shopping, and hasn't been seen since. "At this point, you hope it's an abduction," said the police spokesman. Added her mother: "If she's alive, she's scared to death." Click for more on the case.