
By Denise Gee Peacock
Lieutenant Chris O’Keefe of the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Police Department (TPD) has a handful of cameo appearances in the reality-crime TV series “The First 48.” But off screen, the real-life search for bad actors and innocent victims has been his calling for several decades.
Much of O’Keefe’s 24-year TPD career has focused on the rapid identification and apprehension of homicide suspects and other violent criminals, most recently in the TPD’s Fugitive Warrants Unit. In April 2023 he began supervising the TPD’s Sex and Violent Offender Registration Unit, where he also serves as AMBER Alert Coordinator (AAC). As AAC, O’Keefe weighs missing child-related factors as they are known before deciding whether to contact Jason Matheson of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol to initiate an AMBER Alert in partnership with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
We met the De Pere, Wisconsin, native at this year’s AMBER Alert and AMBER Alert in Indian Country Symposium in Washington, D.C. We reconnected with him in Tulsa to discuss his work.
What led you into law enforcement?
I knew I wanted to get into public service, something to help people on a daily basis. Maybe I just read too many superhero comic books as a kid. But after getting a B.A. in sociology from St. Norbert College in De Pere, I did some law enforcement training at Fox Valley Technical College (FVTC) in Appleton before joining the U.S. Army. Then, when my wife was offered a job in Tulsa, I tapped into my FVTC training and Army experience to sign up for the TPD academy. I joined the organization in 2001.

TACTICAL TIP
“The U.S. Marshals are a great resource,” says O’Keefe, who has served on several U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) task forces. “At the recent [National AMBER Alert and AMBER Alert in Indian Country] symposium, Bill Boldin explained how they’re using their fugitive-search skills to find missing children. I hope people use them more. They’re always quick to offer their help to us, especially when we lack resources to conduct out-of-state investigations.”
How does being an AAC mesh with the other work you do for the TPD?
It’s a natural fit. An AMBER Alert is essentially a manhunt, and I’ve developed an expertise in finding people. Now I oversee the process after countless directives to “Go, go, go—find them!” I also manage the sex offender registration process, and those are the individuals we look at right away whenever there’s a missing child case.
How many AMBER Alerts do you issue on average?
In the last two years, we’ve issued about six AMBER Alerts. But I couldn’t even begin to count the number of times we’ve discussed if a missing child case should warrant an AMBER Alert, or an Endangered Missing Alert, or be addressed some other way.
What are your biggest challenges?
One involves a perception that if we don’t issue an alert, we’re ignoring the situation. But truth is, we bring plenty of resources to bear to find a child. This was a topic of conversation at the recent AMBER Alert and AMBER Alert in Indian Country Symposium. There’s a lot we can do if a case doesn’t meet our criteria—issue social media posts, work with license plate readers, ping a cell phone. The case can get resolved even quicker if we have solid information to work with right away.
What guides your ultimate decision?
I go by informed instinct, combining that with what I hear from people on the front lines—particularly the responding officers or in some cases our dispatchers, digging into what their first impression of the situation is, and whether they believe the child to be in danger. That’s why first-responder training is essential.
Do you enlist a child abduction response team (CART)?
We have a call tree of people on our incident management team (IMT) who are paged during an AMBER Alert or Endangered Missing situation, and the IMT includes a crisis unit that focuses on child molestation cases. They’re truly an organizational force. We have an AMBER Alert Center within our headquarters and the IMT will use it as its command post, manning the phones, sorting through tips, procuring resources. All the tips flow through me and I decide the priority of them. We then keep track of who we’ve sent where to check out the tip, and I organize all that. We also try to keep the family as close as possible and have a victim advocate on hand.
What types of missing child cases are the most complex?
Stranger abductions—the real nightmare ones, with no information on vehicles or suspects—are thankfully very rare. Parental abductions are the most common—and complicated. Generally, a parent can’t abduct their child if they have the legal right to be with that child, whether all the time or just some of the time. It’s only when the parent says they’re going to go harm themselves and/or the child that we immediately know it warrants an AMBER Alert.
What helps you navigate such complexities?
If there’s even a chance that a parent could hurt the child, we’ll err on the side of caution and issue an AMBER Alert. The challenge lies within the legalities. We worry about unleashing the full force of law enforcement on a parent who hasn’t committed any crime. That can result in liability issues. And that’s where our training and experience have to come into play—and asking the right questions.
Being an AAC is stressful work. What motivates or inspires you?
The times we’ve had AMBER Alerts I’m never short of help. It’s not just from the people on call; we see that every patrol officer is going to stop what they’re doing to help find the child. I also get calls from the regional sheriff’s department, Oklahoma Highway Patrol, FBI, and the U.S. Marshals. It’s amazing. I’m also grateful to have a family that’s been supportive of my work.

Parental abductions are the most common and complex. We have to be careful with custody disputes—unless the parent indicates he might hurt the child. At that point, an AMBER Alert is clear.
