AMBER Alert – AMBER Advocate

Mary Jo Margeson with Washington State Police Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit team

Mary Jo Margeson exhibiting with WHIA banner in back and Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit Washington State Patrol table drape.

Mary Jo Margeson with Washington State Police leadership team

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree," says Mary Jo Margeson, program manager for the Washington State Patrol's Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit (MUPU). As the AMBER Alert coordinator and clearinghouse manager for Washington's Region 5, Margeson navigates the relentless and emotionally taxing daily influx of missing persons cases — a list that never seems to get shorter, made up of repeat runaways, presumed-deceased cases, and the unidentified. It's a job that can feel impossible. It's also one she wouldn't trade.

Mary Jo Margeson is the AMBER Alert Coordinator and Missing Persons Clearinghouse Manager for Washington state, Region 5, and program manager for the Washington State Patrol's Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit.

From Dispatch to the Clearinghouse

Margeson grew up in Oregon and moved to Washington at 20. Her path into missing persons work started in 2018, when she joined the Washington State Patrol as a 911 call taker and dispatcher. After about three years, she moved into the Criminal Records Division, then into the Investigative Assistance Division as an intelligence analyst — home to MUPU. About a year later, she stepped into her current role as MUPU program manager.

"I had very limited knowledge about MUPU at the time," she says. "I don't think anyone can fully understand what my unit does until you're in it. We are so much more than a group of people activating alerts."

Law enforcement offered Margeson career stability. What she didn't expect was to find her calling within it — including the chance to work alongside her agency's Missing and Exploited Children's Task Force, which targets the state's worst offenders.

A Special Kind of Person

Ask Margeson what it takes to do this work, and she doesn't sugarcoat it. "It takes a special kind of crazy person to tolerate this work," she says, only half-joking. "All day, every day, my team and I are seeing names of missing people. The list never seems to get smaller." Repeat runaways. People presumed deceased. Cases in between. And a separate list of the unidentified. It can be exhausting, she says, knowing that no matter how much the team pours into the work, the number of missing keeps climbing and people remain unidentified.

Correcting the Record on AMBER Alerts

Ask Margeson about the biggest misconception in her field, and she doesn't hesitate: that every missing child case should trigger an AMBER Alert.

"We're fortunate in Washington because we have a secondary alert that nearly every child could qualify for — the Endangered Missing Person Advisory," she says. The public, she adds, often doesn't realize alerts can't be issued the moment a child is reported missing. Her team acts at the discretion of the investigating agency, which has its own required steps to work through first. "People are questioning why my team didn't activate an alert sooner, but the truth is there are steps that must be taken prior to our involvement — for good reason."

That gap between public expectation and process is also her hardest daily challenge. MUPU doesn't drive the investigations themselves, which means families searching for answers are often referred back to the investigating agency. "I can't save or find everyone, and that's a reality I have to accept because I can't change it."

A Case That Reshaped Her Approach

When asked about a case that stands out, Margeson points to the Decker case — a set of circumstances no alert could have changed, she says, but one that changed how her team communicates. In the aftermath, she faced intense public scrutiny over how the alert process was handled.

"It was so hard to read the horrible things people were saying, but those weeks reshaped how I deal with the public and the media during subsequent events," she says. The team spent weeks re-examining and redesigning how alerts are written, aiming for the clearest, most concise message possible. "You can't ask for the public's help if you aren't painting a clear picture of what you're looking for — without needing the full case details, and while respecting the privacy of the missing person and their loved ones."

Staying in the Work

For coordinators wondering how to keep going when the list keeps growing, Margeson comes back to the same mantra that opens this piece: it's not about solving everything in a day, she says, it's about making a difference where you can. "Any little thing has the potential to help at least one family."

Off the clock, she's intentional about staying present with her kids, whether that's baseball practice or whatever's next on their schedule. She also leans on physical activity — heavy lifting and long walks, usually early in the morning before the world wakes up. "It's the best way I've found to remove distractions and give myself that much-needed 'me time.'"

A child abducted by a custodial parent from California in 2020 has been safely recovered in North Carolina after six years. Now 11 years old, the child was found enrolled in a local school system under an alias through a Department of Children and Family Services investigation by the Washington County Sheriff's Office. Her recovery followed a National Center for Missing & Exploited Children age progression image released three months prior and involved close coordination between Los Angeles County authorities and North Carolina law enforcement. This case demonstrates the critical role of sustained interstate communication, updated age-progression technology, and the diligence of school resource officers in resolving long-term missing child cases.

After the initiation of a custodial parent child welfare investigation, the mother stopped communicating with the Department of Children and Family Services and relocated across the country. The child was enrolled in a North Carolina public school under an alias. School resource officers played a direct role in locating the child, proving that educational systems are vital hubs for recognizing missing children.

Age-progression technology remains a vital tool in long-term missing children cases. Updating visual profiles—such as the NCMEC image released three months prior to this rescue—keeps cold cases visible and equips law enforcement with current, actionable data.

The outcome relied heavily on cross-country coordination. Information shared from Los Angeles County directly prompted the Washington County Sheriff's Office to act.

Key Findings

The abduction occurred during an active child welfare investigation when the custodial parent severed contact.
The missing child evaded detection for six years by using a false name to enroll in a school system.
The release of an age-progression image three months before the recovery refreshed case visibility.
The successful recovery resulted from direct intelligence sharing between California and North Carolina law enforcement.
Local school deputies were instrumental in confirming the child's identity and taking her into protective custody.

Sources

NCMEC (March 11, 2026): NCMEC report on the safe recovery of Karen Rojas in North Carolina (Link)
FOX 11 Los Angeles (March 11, 2026): Missing California girl kidnapped in 2020 found safe in North Carolina 6 years later (Link)
ABC10 (March 13, 2026): California girl who vanished 6 years ago found safe 2,500 miles away (Link)
The Independent (March 11, 2026): Missing California girl, 11, last seen in 2020 found enrolled at North Carolina school under 'an alias name' (Link)

An AMBER Alert issued for a 9-year-old boy in South Salt Lake, Utah, concluded with a quick recovery after the suspect surrendered to police. The suspect, a former family acquaintance, used her own minor children as a manipulation tactic to gain access to the victim. Initial police efforts utilized an active Facebook Messenger conversation to communicate with the suspect before she realized law enforcement was involved. During these calls, the suspect falsely claimed to have dropped the boy off at a park and with a child services worker. The alert was canceled shortly after when the suspect provided her true location. This case shows how familiarity and digital communication play key roles in responses to abductions.

The suspect used calculated deception to carry out the abduction. By bringing her own minor children to the encounter, the suspect created a false sense of security that convinced the victim's family to allow the 9-year-old boy to leave with her.

Real-time digital communication proved valuable during the initial response. The victim's mother was already communicating with the suspect via Facebook Messenger. Responding officers used this active digital link to speak directly with the suspect by phone. Because the suspect was initially unaware of police involvement, investigators gathered real-time intelligence and assessed the suspect's behavior and story.

During the investigation, the suspect actively misled authorities to delay the recovery. She provided false locations, claiming the child was left at a local park and, later, with a Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) caseworker. Officers lost valuable time checking the victim's residence and the park.

The alert generated immediate public attention. The suspect ultimately contacted the police, revealed the actual address where she was holding the boy, and allowed officers to take her into custody. The quick resolution underscores the effectiveness of public alerts in forcing an offender's hand, even when a known acquaintance commits the abduction.

Key Findings

The suspect used her own minor children to build trust and gain access to the victim.
Police leveraged an active Facebook Messenger conversation to speak directly with the suspect during the early stages of the investigation.
The suspect deliberately misled officers by claiming the child was dropped off with a DCFS worker and at a local park.
The AMBER Alert directly prompted the suspect to contact police and provide her real location.

Sources

KSL News (Jun 14, 2024): Amber Alert canceled after boy was reported missing out of South Salt Lake (Link)
KSL News (Jun 14, 2024): Woman arrested, accused of child kidnapping in South Salt Lake Amber Alert (Link)

Lieutenant Chris Daniels, Lieutenant Jim Lowary, Lieutenant Morgan Patterson, Captain Jason Crites, Lieutenant Joe Davidson, Lieutenant Casey Utterback standing in fron of the corner of MSHP headquarters building — Lt. Chris Daniels, Lt. Jim Lowary, Lt. Morgan Patterson, Capt. Jason Crites, Lt. Joe Davidson, Lt. Casey Utterback

Eleven minutes. That's how long it took a Troop F trooper to spot a stolen vehicle at a convenience store, arrest the driver, and pull a child out of the back seat safe. Minutes earlier, an AMBER Alert had gone out: a non-custodial father, wanted for killing the child's mother, was on the run with his son. By the time backup arrived, it was already over.

Ask three different members of Troop F’s leadership team about that case, and three different vantage points come back—the operations director who watched the request move through channels, the lieutenant weighing whether the facts met the legal threshold, the coordinator trusting that the alert reached exactly the people who needed to see it. It’s the case each of them reaches for first when asked what this work looks like when it succeeds.

That overlap says something about how this team operates. Missouri State Highway Patrol's Troop F covers the state's central region—Jefferson City, Columbia, the Lake of the Ozarks—through a command structure built on military service, small-town policing, and decades inside the Patrol. Captain Jason Crites and five lieutenants each run a different piece of Troop F's operations while sharing one high-stakes responsibility: deciding, often within minutes, whether a missing child meets the statutory threshold for a statewide AMBER Alert.

Ask any of them what the public gets wrong, and the answer comes back almost word for word: people assume an alert should go out for every missing child. It doesn’t. The criteria are deliberately narrow—evidence of abduction, evidence of imminent danger—and cases that fall short are routed instead to Missouri’s Endangered Person Advisory system. It’s a distinction the team spends real energy explaining, and worth stating plainly before their individual stories begin.

Lieutenant Jim Lowary, Lieutenant Chris Daniels, Lieutenant Morgan Patterson, Captain Jason Crites, Lieutenant Joe Davidson, Lieutenant Casey Utterback in uniform in front of a wall of photos with fallen MSHP fallen officers. — Lt. Jim Lowary, Lt. Chris Daniels, Lt. Morgan Patterson, Capt. Jason Crites, Lt. Joe Davidson, Lt. Casey Utterback

Capt. Jason N. Crites, Badge #32

Missouri Statewide AMBER Alert Coordinator & Troop F Commander

Crites grew up in Portageville, in Missouri’s southeast bootheel, and served four years in the U.S. Marine Corps before joining the Highway Patrol in 1998. He's held nearly every rank between Troops F and E—corporal, sergeant, lieutenant —and ran the Patrol’s Research and Development Division before returning to Troop F as commander and statewide AMBER Alert Coordinator, a dual role that puts him in charge of both central-region operations and every alert-activation decision in the state.

The pull toward the job started next door. “An MSHP trooper moved in next door and let me ride along during his shifts,” he says. “Seeing him take decisive action during criminal encounters and help stranded motorists inspired me. I looked up to him as a mentor.” After the Marine Corps, becoming a trooper felt like the natural next step.

As coordinator, Crites is the one drawing the line the public most often misunderstands. “We maintain very strict criteria for these activations,” he says, but a missing child who doesn’t meet AMBER Alert parameters isn’t simply left uncovered. Missouri's Endangered Person Advisory exists precisely for those cases.

The case Crites points to as a defining success is a different one: a child abducted in central Missouri, where the reporting agency moved fast with a vehicle description, plate number, and direction of travel. Troop F targeted the alert to that corridor; a motorist spotted the car on the interstate; and because a saturation detail happened to be working nearby, a trooper made the stop and recovered the child within minutes.

“Knowing that a child has been successfully recovered makes the entire grind of maintaining and improving the system completely worth the effort. As a parent, I cannot imagine the fear of having a child abducted.” — Capt. Jason N. Crites

The job's weight doesn't disappear at the end of a shift. Crites manages it with a small ritual: “A personal coping mechanism I developed when I was younger is watching a movie after a critical incident or stressful day. It allows me to temporarily disconnect so I can return to duty with a clear mind.” His advice to newer Coordinators is practical rather than sentimental—master the criteria, tighten your transmission process, and never work without backup. “Having six qualified staff members allows us to consult one another on complicated requests to ensure we make the right call.”

Lt. Joseph D. Davidson, Badge #66

District 4 Operations Director

Davidson grew up in Kahoka, in Missouri’s far northeast corner, and spent seven years in local law enforcement—three as a detention officer, four as a Clark County deputy—before joining the Highway Patrol in 2004. He spent his first two decades in Troop B, rising to corporal and sergeant, before a promotion to lieutenant in August 2024 moved his family to Jefferson City. He now runs District 4 operations, supervising three zones along Interstate 70 and commercial vehicle enforcement, while also serving as motor equipment manager, Honor Guard coordinator, awards coordinator, and property control administrator.

His grandfather was a law enforcement officer, and watching that career shaped his own. “By the time I was in high school, I knew I wanted to follow in his footsteps,” he says.

Davidson's read on the public’s biggest misunderstanding goes a step further than most: it’s not just that people expect an alert for every missing child—many also assume an alert failed simply because they didn’t personally receive it. In most cases, that's a matter of geography, not system failure; alerts are targeted to the area where the child is believed to be.

His own defining case unfolded on Interstate 70, not at a convenience store. FLOCK license-plate cameras flagged the suspect vehicle, and rapid coordination between radio operators and road troopers turned that lead into a safe recovery within minutes—a case that shows how much depends on technology and dispatch working in sync, not just a trooper’s instincts in the moment.

Davidson’s role is largely support—keeping troopers and clerical staff equipped and functioning—and that’s where his motivation comes from: “Knowing that they depend on me every day to get them what they need keeps me highly motivated.” Outside of work, it’s family: 18 years married to his wife, Haley, three kids, weekends at the Lake of the Ozarks, golf, pickleball, and lawn care.

“Seek help when you need it; it is a sign of strength, not weakness … do your best not to let your career become your entire identity.” — Lt. Joseph D. Davidson

Lt. Chris S. Daniels, Badge #55

District Lieutenant & Public Order Unit Assistant Platoon Leader

Daniels grew up in Richmond, Missouri, and graduated from Missouri Western State University before joining the Missouri State Water Patrol in 2000, working the Lake of the Ozarks as a patrol officer. When the Water Patrol merged into the Highway Patrol in 2011, he became a trooper without leaving the Lake, working up to corporal and sergeant before a 2022 promotion to lieutenant. He now manages four road zones within Troop F, supervises radio and maintenance staff, coordinates the University of Missouri football detail, serves as an assistant platoon leader for the Public Order Unit, and acts as the Exposure Control Plan coordinator.

His path into the field was simple and direct: “Upon completing college, I had a simple, direct desire to work in a public service field where I could actively help people and improve the community I live in.” He names integrity, clear communication, critical thinking, and decisiveness as the traits the job demands—and describes the daily balancing act at the center of alert decisions as “a high-stakes balancing act of gathering and verifying facts against established criteria while managing the extreme urgency required to issue a timely alert.” He’s one of several on the team who point to the Interstate 70 recovery described above as the case that stays with him.

What keeps him going is uncomplicated: “Having the distinct knowledge that the work I perform actually matters to people and makes a tangible difference in our communities.” Off duty, he protects time with his family deliberately, calling it essential to not “take the burdens of the job home with you.”

Lt. James E. Lowary, Badge #91

District Lieutenant & Public Order Unit Coordinator

Lowary grew up in Quincy, Illinois, and attended Missouri Southern College in Joplin before the Missouri State Water Patrol hired him in 2000 at the Lake of the Ozarks. He moved into the Highway Patrol in 2004, first assigned to Audrain County, then serving across Camden, Miller, and Cole counties as a corporal and sergeant before making lieutenant in 2023. He now oversees Troop F’s marine zones and the Lake of the Ozarks road zones, coordinates the Public Order Unit, and serves as the troop’s drug test officer.

Lowary’s draw to the work is rooted in protecting people who can’t protect themselves: “I have always felt drawn to protecting vulnerable individuals who cannot advocate for themselves … law enforcement offers a powerful platform to hold offenders accountable while helping impacted families rebuild their lives.” He describes integrity and “a rock-solid moral compass” as non-negotiable, since “children depend entirely on law enforcement to advocate for them.” Like several of his colleagues, the case he returns to is the interstate recovery of the boy abducted by his non-custodial father—a reminder, he says, that “every second is critical, yet all actions must remain tethered to verified facts.”

Outside the uniform, Lowary's life runs on a different clock entirely: a farm with horses and cattle, a wife and daughter who compete in barrel racing, and time spent deer hunting.

“It is essential to focus on interests outside the patrol, so work does not interfere with family life.” — Lt. James E. Lowary

Lt. Casey Utterback, Badge #103

District I Commander & Assistant Patrol ALERT Coordinator

Utterback grew up in a small central Missouri town and joined the Missouri Army National Guard in 1997 before earning an Associate of Arts degree and completing a 470-hour police academy. After three years in municipal policing, he joined the Highway Patrol in 2002, working up through corporal and master sergeant in Troop A out of Kansas City before a promotion to lieutenant brought him to Troop F in 2021. He now commands District I, overseeing Motor Vehicle Inspection, Driver Examination, the Chaplain program, and the SWAT team, in addition to his role as assistant Patrol ALERT Coordinator.

“I knew by high school that I wanted to pursue both the military and law enforcement,” he says, describing an empathetic nature and a drive to serve that predates his career. He points to communication and emotional intelligence—paired with “a solid moral compass and core integrity”—as the foundation of effective leadership in the role.

The hardest part of his job isn’t any single case; it’s the whiplash between them. “The toughest challenge is rapidly shifting gears between radically different tasks within a span of minutes—such as transitioning from tedious administrative paperwork directly to supervising a high-speed vehicle pursuit or managing an officer-involved shooting scene.”

His defining case happened in the Kansas City area: a vehicle stolen with a child inside while the mother ran into a store. The AMBER Alert triggered a multi-jurisdictional pursuit—local, county, and state agencies working together—that ended with a tire-spike, a short foot chase, an arrest, and the child safely back with her mother.

Utterback manages the job’s weight by accepting its limits: “certain outcomes are completely beyond your control, regardless of how much effort you expend.” He protects time for physical fitness and family—sporting events, holidays, family dinners.

“Life is short, so make a conscious effort to make it enjoyable for yourself and those around you.” — Lt. Casey Utterback

Lt. Morgan B. Patterson, Badge #88

Administrative Services Director & Assistant Troop F SWAT Director

Patterson is a Jefferson City native who attended the State Technical College of Missouri and joined the Highway Patrol in 2010 as part of the 92nd Recruit Class. He worked the road in Osage and Gasconade counties before being promoted to corporal, then sergeant in Cole County, then spent a tour instructing at the Patrol’s Academy before making lieutenant in 2023. He now serves as Troop F’s administrative services director and assistant director of Troop F SWAT.

“I witnessed firsthand how dedicated law enforcement officers could change lives,” he says of his path into the field, describing a lasting sense of responsibility “to stand up for those who cannot protect themselves.” He names integrity and communication as the two pillars of emergency response—the first ensuring decisions are based on accurate data, the second keeping field officers, agencies, and the public aligned during a crisis.

The case Patterson points to isn’t a clean rescue—it’s one that almost didn’t happen. A request initially fell short of AMBER Alert criteria, and the team made the harder call: deny it and tell the detective exactly what evidence was missing. Once the agency came back with what was needed, the alert went out immediately. A trooper spotted the vehicle, made a brief pursuit, and recovered the children unharmed. It’s a story less about speed than restraint—proof that getting the criteria right, even when it means saying no first, is what makes the system work.

Patterson’s motivation is close to home: a husband and father of three young boys, he says they’re “a daily reminder of exactly why this work is so important.” He recharges by coaching their sports teams, calling it “a healthy, positive outlet outside of the uniform.”

“Never attempt to make critical, life-altering decisions in isolation … build a cohesive team that communicates openly and trusts one another.” — Lt. Morgan B. Patterson

Six Paths, One Clock

Six different paths into the job, six different corners of Troop F's territory—but the same math shows up in every conversation: children can’t wait, the criteria can’t bend, and no single person carries that weight alone. That's the case this team keeps making, one alert at a time.

Connect with the Missouri State Highway Patrol Troop F's AMBER Alert Leadership Team through the Portal.

Lieutenant Jenna Clawson Huibregtse speaking at a podium with a North Dakota State Patrol SUV in the background.

Lieutenant Jenna Clawson Huibregtse coaching two teams of five young boy basketball teams.

“Progress moves at the speed of trust.”

For Lieutenant Jenna Clawson Huibregtse, this principle is the foundation of effective emergency response. Serving with the North Dakota Highway Patrol (NDHP) and operating as the state's AMBER Alert Coordinator/Clearinghouse Manager, she navigates the intense intersection of urgent missing persons cases and strict policy enforcement. From pioneering cultural liaison programs to implementing North Dakota's newly established Feather and Missing Endangered Persons Alerts, Clawson Huibregtse shares her expert perspective on managing high-stakes alerts, overcoming interjurisdictional complexities, and maintaining resilience in a demanding field.

Lieutenant Jenna Clawson Huibregtse, North Dakota AMBER Alert Coordinator — Lieutenant Jenna Clawson Huibregtse, North Dakota's AMBER Alert Coordinator

Could you share a bit about your current role, the region you serve, and your background?

As a NDHP lieutenant, my responsibilities span public information, social media, dignitary protection, Capitol security, recruitment, and the crash/victims assistance program. I am also North Dakota’s Missing Persons Clearinghouse Manager/AMBER Alert Coordinator, overseeing statewide activations including Blue, Silver, Feather, and Missing Endangered Persons Alerts.

I grew up in Plentywood, Montana, and began my career with the agency in 2015 after earning a master’s degree from North Dakota State University. Proudly, I am a first-generation college graduate and a first-generation law enforcement officer.

What led you to your position as an AMBER Alert Coordinator and Missing Persons Clearinghouse Manager?

I always desired a dynamic career, and my path was heavily influenced by personal and community experiences. After joining the NDHP in 2015, I helped create our Cultural Liaison Officer Program following the 2016 Dakota Access Pipeline protests. The program's goal was to build relationships, increase trust, and reduce jurisdictional complexities with Tribal nations. Since then, I have worked closely with local, county, Tribal, state, and federal partners.

Throughout my tenure, I have served as a patrol trooper, cultural liaison officer, planning officer, safety and education officer, and dignitary protection officer. Managing the Clearinghouse has been exceptionally rewarding, allowing me to strengthen statewide communication while helping locate missing and endangered individuals.

How has the Clearinghouse approached training and communication since the introduction of new adult alerts?

The Feather Alert and Missing Endangered Persons Alert were established during the 2025 legislative session to address a critical gap for endangered adults 18 and older at risk of serious bodily injury or death. While we have utilized these alerts a few times over the last year, we maintain strict activation criteria, particularly concerning Wireless Emergency Alerts.

Expanding a clearinghouse mandate naturally impacts day-to-day operations, but our successful implementation stems from pre-existing relationships with law enforcement agencies and Tribal nations. One of my personal rules is that relationships must be built before an emergency occurs; trying to forge them in the middle of a crisis rarely works well.

Following the legislation, our team took proactive steps:

We conducted more than 15 training sessions directly in communities across North Dakota.

The training was provided to licensed law enforcement officers, emergency managers, and telecommunicators.

We delivered training to four of the five Tribal nations that share geography with North Dakota, with the fifth pending scheduling.

We emphasized front-end education to clarify alert criteria, reducing unqualified requests and helping agencies navigate cases that fall into a gray area.

We actively guided local agencies to maximize existing resources like reverse 911 systems, social media, and media releases.

With every alert request, we continue learning and refining the process. This success is a shared team effort among the NDHP, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the State Emergency Communications Center, and the North Dakota Department of Emergency Services.

What essential skills make someone effective in this demanding role?

Coordinators require strong relationship-building abilities, excellent communication skills, and the capacity to lead with empathy while making firm, decisive choices. These rapid-moving cases involve numerous partners and require balancing extreme urgency with strict policy compliance. Success demands building trust beforehand and sustaining it under pressure. The role also brings heavy public scrutiny, especially when cases do not meet alert criteria, making a strong support system essential for staying grounded and effective.

What is the biggest public misconception about issuing alerts?

The public often believes law enforcement can activate an AMBER Alert or Missing Child Advisory anytime a child goes missing. In reality, these tools are reserved for the highest-risk scenarios where immediate public awareness can save a life, and they are only utilized when public assistance is actively needed.

Another misconception is that an unissued alert means law enforcement is ignoring the case. Extensive behind-the-scenes investigative work, agency coordination, and local outreach happen continuously without a statewide broadcast being activated. Overusing alerts outside established guidelines causes "alert fatigue," leading the public to ignore true emergencies. Our goal is always to use the right tool at the right time.

Can you share a specific success story?

One profound success involved an AMBER Alert issued from the Fort Berthold Reservation for a 2-year-old child trapped in the backseat of a stolen vehicle. The rapid alert activation generated multiple public sightings and made the suspect aware of the massive law enforcement response, resulting in the child's safe return. That outcome hinged on several factors: quick reporting, swift law enforcement action, and seamless interagency partnerships. Cases like that reinforce why these alert systems exist and how important timing can be.

We also handle a high volume of Silver Alert requests. By working these cases aggressively from the beginning with local technology and resources, we often resolve them safely before a public broadcast even becomes necessary. Ultimately, our extremely high success rate comes directly from collaboration between law enforcement, emergency communications, media, Tribal nations, and an attentive public.

How do you manage the stress of the job and recharge?

This heavy work stays with you, especially cases involving vulnerable children. No one does it alone. I rely on trusted colleagues and focus on the core mission: protecting vulnerable people and supporting families on some of the worst days of their lives. I stay motivated by watching local, Tribal, state, and federal partners unite to bring loved ones home.

To recharge, I coach youth sports, stay active, and prioritize intentional time with my family. Law enforcement can easily consume your entire identity; maintaining balance allows me to keep perspective and continue showing up for the communities we serve.

What advice do you have for fellow coordinators and new professionals?

Build relationships before you need them, because progress moves at the speed of trust.

Invest time in getting to know your partners before a crisis hits, as these collaborative partnerships cannot be created in the middle of an emergency.

Remember that policies, criteria, and technology matter, but communication and empathy matter just as much when guiding families and agencies through difficult, fast-paced decisions.

Stay collaborative by finding mentors, asking questions, and being willing to learn from every single case.

Stay humble and never lose sight of why the work matters in the first place.

Connect with Lt. Jenna Clawson Huibregtse through the Portal.

The tragic loss of 17-year-old Hailey Buzbee in Indiana highlights a critical shift in missing youth recoveries. Because she was lured online and appeared to leave voluntarily, her case initially fell outside strict AMBER Alert criteria. In response, Indiana enacted legislation expanding the Silver Alert program to include all missing children believed to be in danger, alongside broadened alert discretion for enticement cases. By focusing on credible vulnerability indicators—such as digital grooming—rather than physical abduction definitions, Coordinators and law enforcement can trigger rapid public notifications. This modernization ensures multiagency mobilization for tech-facilitated disappearances, safely closing the gap for high-risk teens.

The February 2026 recovery of a 2-year-old offers critical takeaways on multiagency operations. The abduction was identified after the armed suspect left the assaulted mother at a local emergency room. Rapid hospital-to-police communication enabled the Starke County Sheriff’s Office to issue a statewide AMBER Alert by 5:30 a.m. The child was recovered safely two hours later during a welfare check. By isolating the child’s recovery from the suspect’s apprehension, the FBI GRIT Task Force and U.S. Marshals could deploy chemical agents to secure the barricaded suspect. This case proves how pre-established task force partnerships safely resolve high-threat scenarios.

A coordinated law enforcement response and a swiftly issued Missouri AMBER Alert led to the safe recovery of two siblings, aged 10 and 8, just 45 minutes after activation. The children were abducted in the Northland area by 27-year-old Lyrick Bryson. The alert included critical vehicle descriptors (a silver Infiniti with a temporary Missouri tag). This information allowed Kansas City Police to locate the suspect vehicle and children in south Kansas City. The rapid resolution highlights the effectiveness of seamless cross-jurisdictional communication between the Missouri State Highway Patrol and local agencies.

A multi-state AMBER Alert successfully resolved the Jan. 31 abduction of a 4-year-old from Mansfield, Texas. The speed of recovery, just six hours from the initial 8:50 a.m. call to the 2:40 p.m. arrest, highlights the efficacy of rapid data entry, and the Mansfield Police identifying the suspect’s vehicle path into Missouri. Leveraging interstate databases allowed Missouri Highway Patrol to locate the stolen Toyota Corolla shortly after the alert broadcast. This case underscores how cross-jurisdictional intelligence and license-plate-reader hits are vital when suspects flee across state lines during the critical response window.

Highlighting the complex decision-making involved in modern abductions, the Martin County (Florida) Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) successfully recovered two sisters, aged 12 and 15, by strategically delaying an AMBER Alert to maintain a tactical advantage. Investigators determined the suspect, 19-year-old Hser Mu Lah Say, was actively monitoring digital channels. Fearing an alert would cause him to flee or harm the victims, detectives instead commandeered the family's device, impersonating relatives in chats to track his movement along I-75 without revealing law enforcement involvement. This "silent pursuit" allowed the Georgia Highway Patrol to intercept the suspect's Honda CR-V in Lowndes County just minutes before the alert was scheduled to launch. The case offers a vital case study for Coordinators on weighing the benefits of public saturation against the risks of tipping off digitally savvy predators.

Amber Hagerman holding her baby brother, Ricky, in front of wrapped Christmas packages — *Amber Hagerman with her baby brother, Ricky*

By Denise Gee Peacock

On January 13, 1996, 9-year-old Amber Hagerman’s life was stolen by a stranger who dragged her kicking and screaming from her bicycle in broad daylight. Despite an unrelenting search and dedicated efforts by law enforcement, the media, and the public, Amber would never make it home. She was found brutally murdered. Her loss devastated her family and community, leaving a wound that has yet to heal.

In the months following the third-grader’s abduction and killing, Dallas-Fort Worth-area broadcasters worked with local police to establish what they hoped would be an antidote to future crimes: the America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response (AMBER) Alert—named in Amber’s honor, both to remember her and to protect children in the future. It would harness the power of technology, the media, and community action to spread urgent news when a child’s life was in danger.

It took almost a decade to get every U.S. state to adopt the alert system, but as of Dec. 18, 2025, AMBER Alerts have helped recover more than 1,292 children nationwide—241 of them rescued because of wireless emergency alerts (WEAs).

Though Amber’s life was heartbreakingly short, her legacy has been to save countless lives. Each time an AMBER Alert flashes across a screen or sounds on a phone, her name is carried forward—not just as a reminder of tragedy, but as a symbol of hope, protection, and action.

Janell Rasmussen Administrator, AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program / Director, National Criminal Justice Training Center

Amber’s case also underscores fundamental lessons that child protection professionals should consider as they navigate missing child incidents.

Rapid public communication is vital.
Before Amber’s case, police lacked a formal framework for instantly broadcasting information about child abductions to the public.

The AMBER Alert system was created specifically to fill this gap, leveraging radio, TV, and eventually wireless technology to send out critical information like descriptions of the child, suspect, and vehicle.

“Amber’s case was a witnessed abduction—the rarest of all—and there was credible information available about the suspected abductor and his truck,” says Chuck Fleeger, Region 3 Liaison for the AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP). “There just wasn’t a mechanism then to get that information out quickly and to the widest possible audience.”

AATTAP’s Region 3 spans 10 states, from Louisiana to Nebraska to Arizona. It also encompasses Fleeger’s home state of Texas, where since 2003 he has served as executive director of the AMBER Alert Network Brazos Valley, a non-profit in central Texas that assists with regional AMBER Alert coordination, provides public education, and partners with local law enforcement and other responders in alerting, response, and investigative readiness.

In 2020 Fleeger retired as Assistant Chief of Police with the College Station Police Department, where he served for more than three decades. He now teaches AMBER Alert investigative best practices courses for the AATTAP.

Time is of the essence.
Experts recognized that the first few hours are the most critical in a child abduction case. The AMBER Alert protocol emphasizes speed, ensuring that law enforcement, broadcasters, and transportation agencies react swiftly to reports.

Balancing that need for speed with a desire for accuracy can be a struggle for AMBER Alert Coordinators. “Law enforcement wrestles with the desire to verify information is complete and accurate, but then it’s not timely; conversely, you can have timely information but some of it’s not completely accurate. That’s OK. It’s better to get the process going even if an activation package isn’t perfect,” Fleeger says. “We all know how crucial time is, so any moments that can be saved could potentially make the difference in a child’s recovery.”

Successfully navigating such a high-stakes process “takes a combination of continuing education, experience, and good communication with others,” says Fleeger’s colleague Joan Collins, Liaison for AATTAP’s Region 1 (encompassing 11 states in the Northeast, from Maine to West Virginia).

Collins’ career has involved 39 years of work for Rhode Island law enforcement. She spent 28 of those years with the Rhode Island State Police, where she helped audit and train users of the Rhode Island Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (RILETS); was central to increasing the state’s various emergency alerts; managed the state’s sex offender/“Most Wanted” databases; and worked with the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children task force.

The creation of the AMBER Alert system has become an important public global safety tool for child abductions, and there is ongoing hope for the resolution of Amber Hagerman’s case. The goal is to safely recover an abducted child. The decisions made by AMBER Alert Coordinators are often stressful, made quickly and under pressure, following established protocols and using their best judgment based on the information at hand.

Joan Collins Region 1 Liaison, AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program

“Doing this line of work involves being an active listener—of knowing what questions to ask,” she says. Collins now teaches such AATTAP courses as AMBER Alert: To Activate or Not Activate as well as 911 Telecommunicators and Missing & Abducted Children (aka “911 T-MAC”).

Coordination is key.
The AMBER Alert system functions through the seamless cooperation of multiple groups, including law enforcement, broadcasters, transportation agencies, and the media.

Reviews of every alert help to improve the process over time by getting input from these various partners.

Collins recommends that partners include not only those within one’s own law enforcement agency, but also those from surrounding states (“with whom you’re likely to work with more often than not”). “It’s important to connect with your counterparts elsewhere and build relationships with them early so you can act together quickly and successfully,” she says. “It’s always a relief to know others are ready and willing to help out during times of high stress, and they in turn will appreciate your advice and support.”

Protocols must be followed carefully.
For any case—which can potentially become a high-profile one—there is a need for law enforcement to meticulously follow established protocols. This includes the difficult decisions an AMBER Alert Coordinator must make with the limited information available at the time, which may be criticized by the public later.

“With any missing child case, law enforcement should first assume the child is at risk until evidence presents otherwise,” Fleeger says.

He also recommends patrol first responders consider the long-term implications of their efforts, avoiding any pass-the-buck mentality of case stewardship. “Think about the officers dispatched to Amber’s case. They certainly didn’t know when they started their shift that three decades later the case would be unsolved—and how dramatically changed available resources and response models would become.” It’s essential to remember that “the right documentation of information really matters. And if we’re doing good, solid police work from the earliest moments, that work should stand the test of time and hold up well.”

Use targeted, advanced technology.
Modern AMBER Alerts benefit from geotargeting, which focuses alerts on the people most likely to have seen the child. This prevents citizens in a wider area from being desensitized and ignoring alerts.

The public can help.
AMBER Alert’s success is a testament to the power of community vigilance. It allows millions of people to serve as the “eyes and ears” for law enforcement by reporting tips to the authorities. To keep the public from “information burnout” on a case, Fleeger recommends using multiple photos of a missing child at different times. “If someone is scrolling through their feed on social media and see the same photo time and again, they’ll assume they’ve already read that information,” he says. “A new or different photo will make somebody pause and think, ‘I didn’t realize he is still missing.’ The goal is to keep the case a priority in the public’s mind until we can get that person found.”

Don’t assume benign circumstances.
Before the AMBER Alert system, bystanders witnessing a child struggling with an adult may have assumed it was a family dispute or the child misbehaving. Amber’s case highlights the danger of assuming an abduction is a benign event and reinforces the importance of reporting suspicious activity immediately—even if it seems inconsequential.

Collins refers to the barking dog analogy in her teaching. She encourages dispatchers in training to ask questions and gather more information. “For example, is the dog that someone is calling about normally outside barking, or does it rarely bark? This could indicate whether something unusual is occurring. It’s important not to make assumptions, as callers may have relevant information that can be discovered by asking further questions

Stranger abductions are real.
While statistically rare—the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children reports that stranger abductions account for 1% of reported abductions—they are a real danger. Amber’s case serves as a reminder of the vulnerability of children, especially when a predator targets them. According to NCMEC, victims are most often girls, and the average age for attempted abductions is 11 and completed abductions is 14.

Justice is a long process.
Despite the creation of a system that has saved countless lives, Amber’s murder remains unsolved decades later. The lesson is that the fight for justice continues, and the public can still assist by reporting any strange observations. “Long-term cases like Amber Hagerman’s are solvable,” Fleeger says. “Technology continues to evolve and so do peoples’ lives. People will decide to talk for whatever reason when circumstances change. Consider the Austin [Texas] yogurt shop murder case that was recently solved. You just never know.”

Shortly after phones in Prince George’s County, Maryland, began buzzing about a SUV wanted in a suspected child abduction, a group of friends captured the moment they recognized the SUV from the AMBER Alert—and started recording. In a viral TikTok video posted by one of the friends, a gray Volkswagen SUV rolls up alongside them, and they elicit excited recognition. Deciding not to engage with the suspect (as law enforcement had instructed), the clip ends with a short view of the SUV surrounded by police vehicles farther up the road. “Thanks to a great community partnership, an alert citizen [in another vehicle] spotted the AMBER Alert car,” the Prince George’s County Police Department wrote on X. “That citizen contacted [dispatch] who relayed the locations to [us] through our interoperable radio system.” The missing girl was found safe.

Photo illustration of a blue blanket with a pink heart pillow — In 2023, 59% of AMBER Alerts were for family abduction cases, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The abductions tend to occur at transition points, such as when court-ordered exchanges of the child are scheduled to take place. Staff photo illustration.

By Jody Garlock

Engaging the public has always been at the heart of AMBER Alerts. The program, after all, was built on the premise of instantly galvanizing citizens and motorists to serve as an extra set of eyes to help law enforcement safely locate an endangered missing or abducted child. The power of that concept played out literally and figuratively in a case that gripped the quiet county-seat town of Fallon, Nevada.

On March 31, 2025, the Nevada Department of Public Safety issued an AMBER Alert that was disseminated to broadcast media and cellular devices around Washoe County. Ten-month-old Lyric Smitten had been taken by his noncustodial mother, Chelsea Daniels, earlier that day. According to information released by the Churchill County Sheriff’s Office, authorities were advised that Daniels had been distraught after a court removed the boy from her care and custody. She was reported to have a handgun and had threatened to harm herself and her son.

The case solidly met the criteria for activating an AMBER Alert. These criteria included the belief that the child was in imminent danger and there was enough descriptive information for the public to aid in the recovery.

Unlike most AMBER Alerts, this case had an additional layer of urgency: The child was scheduled to undergo heart surgery the following day.

As news of the missing boy quickly spread around Fallon and the other high desert communities of western Nevada, tips to 911 came in. Because the vehicle Daniels was driving was relatively common—a black SUV (specifically a Ford Explorer) with a Nevada license plate— several tips matched a general description.

Although the AMBER Alert provided the license plate number, motorists aren’t always able to capture the exacting details. Officers knew the dire situation required taking all tips seriously, even those where the information matched just a general description of the SUV. One such tip led to a Fallon elementary school being placed on lockdown until authorities confirmed that the vehicle reported on the grounds wasn’t Daniels’.

One particular tip, however, stood out. A caller reported seeing a vehicle matching the description and that was being driven by a woman in an area that aligned with earlier cell phone pings from the mother’s phone. Patrol and investigative units were already in the area and took swift action. They spotted the SUV traveling on a mountain road.

Collage of four images showing the AMBER Alert cell phone message, a Walmart, an elementary school, and a news report — **HOW IT UNFOLDED** (from left, top to bottom): The AMBER Alert pinged cell phones shortly after 2 p.m. for the Nevada infant taken by his noncustodial mother and believed to be in imminent danger. The last reported siting of the child was at a Walmart. An elementary school was placed on lockdown after a tip matched a general description of the mother’s vehicle there. About an hour after the alert was issued, authorities acting on another tip spotted the vehicle and safely recovered the boy. Local media reported the news, to the relief of residents.

After initially failing to stop, Daniels pulled over the vehicle, heeding the emergency lights and sirens from a sheriff’s deputy’s patrol vehicle. The infant was found safe; emergency medical responders also assessed the child’s health.

Authorities did not release information on the boy’s heart condition or surgery.

The Fallon Police Department took Daniels into custody on various charges, including kidnapping. Fallon authorities noted after the incident that concern about the child’s medical condition played a factor in the case rising to the level of an AMBER Alert.

Similar to how the public responded with tips, local authorities were quick to praise the public for its vigilance that contributed to the safe resolution. Churchill County Sheriff Richard Hickox also credited the multiple agencies and emergency medical responders who were involved. “We are grateful for the citizens who called in with sightings and information,” Hickox posted on Facebook. “The successful resolution of this situation is a prime example of a collaborative effort by many agencies striving toward one goal—and that is the safety of the public.”

Residents greeted news of the child’s safe recovery with similar gratitude. “Thank you to the people who spoke up and reported!” one person wrote on the Churchill County Sheriff’s social media page.

Carri Gordon, AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP) Liaison for Region 5 (which includes Nevada), considers the case an example of the AMBER Alert system working as it was intended: by engaging the public to prompt a swift recovery. “I’ve activated alerts in the past where the tip came in within six minutes of the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) hitting cell phones, and it was from someone directly behind the suspect’s vehicle,” she recalls. “Law enforcement contacted and safely recovered that child in less than 15 minutes of the AMBER Alert going out. It’s literally lifesaving.”

During her 13 years as the state of Washington’s AMBER Alert Coordinator (AAC), Gordon handled more than 100 AMBER Alerts. Although alert activations for noncustodial parent abductions, such as in this case, have always been higher than stranger abductions, she reminds AACs that this doesn’t mean the child is free of danger. “Parents will—and do— harm their own children,” she says, dispelling a common misconception.

Gordon also knows from experience the pressure AACs feel every time an AMBER Alert is issued, even though they aren’t directly investigating the case. “As AACs we monitor our alerts as they go out and monitor the involvement on social media, such as the shares and likes,” she says. “When you see a case with a lot of public involvement—and tips that eventually lead to the location of the child—it makes you aware of how critical and valuable a tool like the AMBER Alert system is.”

TikTok is teaming up with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to bring critical, time-sensitive information directly to people’s “For You” feeds. The goal is to raise awareness of missing children and leverage the power of the U.S. TikTok community to help reunite missing children with their families. The project was piloted in Texas from January to December 2024, when AMBER Alerts were viewed more than 20 million times and contributed to 2.5 million visits to NCMEC’s website. The AMBER Alerts will now reach more than 170 million Americans.

The software assigns a unique three-word “address” to each 10-foot by 10-foot grid within a location observed by satellite.

What is what3words?
The a satellite-powered digital geocoding system—available free for first responders and as an iOS or Android app–helps identify precise locations. It has decided the world into a grid of 57 trillion 10-foot by 10-foot squares, and given each square a unique combination of three random words. Each three-word “address” lets emergency responders pinpoint a cellphone caller’s GPS coordinates–even in sprawling national parks and large bodies of water. All that is needed is a cellular signal and a smartphone with “location service” enabled.

What U.S. law enforcement agencies are using it—and how?
More than 400 public safety teams (including police departments in Dallas and Los Angeles) across 49 U.S. states are using what3words technology to locate people. The software is compatible with many CAD systems and public safety communication tools, including RapidSOS, Rapid Deploy, and other software partners.

How can it help find children?
For a law enforcement agency equipped with what3words technology, any child or endangered adult who calls can be found within minutes if they call 911 from a location-service enabled cellphone. This is especially helpful if an individual does not know where they are—which often is the case if they have been transported to an unknown location.

Who created it?
The technology—developed in 2013 by Chris Sheldrick in the United Kingdom in 2013—was created to solve issues caused by poor addressing across all sectors, including automotive, e-commerce, emergency, travel and logistics.

Is using what3words more accurate than cellphone pinging?
The use of what3words is not meant to replace the analysis of cellphone geolocation data, which can paint a fuller picture of where a missing child (or a suspected abductor) has been and may be headed. Its advantage lies in being able to narrow a search to 10 feet, which is valuable in large urban areas (with a density of cell towers), where a cellphone ping can land thousands of feet away—up to 10 football fields—from where a phone may be.

How is the public using it?
Family members and friends of younger smartphone users are enlisting the app to more quickly and accurately find each other in large venue environments, such state fairs, large malls, and other big or crowded events.

What other countries use it?
The software is used by 85 percent of UK emergency services, as well as 50 control centers across Canada. It also is used throughout Europe, Australia, South Africa, India, and most recently, Vietnam.

How can my agency learn more about what3words?
To request free training and tech sessions, contact [email protected] or visit https://what3words.com/business/request-an-integration-form.

California Highway Patrol Assistant Chief Ken Roberts stands with a CHP challenge coin--in front of his collection of challenge coins. — *California Highway Patrol Assistant Chief Ken Roberts, who started the CHP's challenge coin program, stands near a collection of special coins.*

By Jody Garlock

California Highway Patrol challenge coin in its display case — *A California Highway Patrol (CHP) AMBER Alert challenge coin is shown in its display case. The CHP has activated more than 320 AMBER Alerts since the state plan’s origins in 2002.*

Challenge coins—insignia medallions traditionally awarded to law enforcement and the military—have held special meaning to California Highway Patrol (CHP) Assistant Chief Ken Roberts ever since learning about a World War II pilot who used his medallion to prove his identity after being shot down. After Roberts became a section commander with oversight of the state’s AMBER Alert program about four years ago, he introduced challenge coins as a way to honor law enforcement personnel who proved instrumental in helping solve child abduction cases.

Without the necessary funding to facilitate the project—meant to boost morale in the CHP’s Counterterrorism and Threat Awareness (CTTA) Section in Sacramento—Roberts spent $1,000 of his own money to create AMBER Alert challenge coins that honor officers and allied partners for going above and beyond in their duties to recover abducted children. Commending the AMBER Alert work from among his section’s varied efforts was easy: “It’s one of the most nationally recognized alerts, and it hits the heartstrings,” Roberts says.

CHP Lieutenant Justin Howlett, who has overseen the program in recent times, says the coins are an exclusive honor, not something casually bestowed or shared.

Since the program’s inception, each year only two or three people or agencies have received the “Recognition of Excellence”—typically fewer than half of the cases that required an AMBER Alert activation. “It’s genuine gratitude,” Howlett says of the CHP AMBER Alert program’s highest honor, only bestowed on personnel actively involved in an AMBER Alert case.

Photo of two people holding AMBER Alert challenge coins from the California Highway Patrol. — From left: Tanea Parmenter, Idaho’s AMBER Alert Coordinator, and Detective Sam Kuoha of the Rupert (Idaho) Police Department show off their California Highway Patrol (CHP) AMBER Alert challenge coins. Parmenter helped Kuoha investigate and activate resources that led California officers to locate a missing girl. It was the Rupert department’s first AMBER Alert.

In one case that involved a cross-border collaboration, an Idaho teen believed to be a victim of human trafficking was safely recovered in California after an AMBER Alert was initiated in her home state. CHP personnel who helped recover the girl from an interstate rest stop near Truckee, California, were awarded, as were Idaho State Police AMBER Alert Coordinator/Missing Persons Clearinghouse Manager Tanea Parmenter and Rupert (Idaho) Police Department Detective Sam Kuoha.

The shiny gold coins bearing the AMBER Alert logo aren’t merely tokens for display. They can help provide closure in child abduction cases, which are some of the most difficult in law enforcement. They also are a source of pride that extends beyond the office or patrol vehicle.

Howlett and Roberts recount the story of an officer whose teenage son teared up after seeing his dad’s challenge coin—and realizing his dad helped save children. “The officer said that was the best feeling ever—to have his son say how proud he was of him,” Roberts says.

While some organizations informally share their coins, the CHP is selective to ensure that “when we give them, it means something,” Roberts says. Award presentations are low key to avoid seeming like it’s being done for the publicity. “We keep it very internal so it feels personal,” Howlett adds.

Roberts credits his officers’ support for creating the challenge coin recognition. One of them even handled the coin’s design. “They were the catalyst; I was just the means to make it happen,” Roberts says. “It’s not a heavy lift to do something like this, as long as you set a few parameters.”

For Howlett, the program has proven well worth the administrative time. “It’s something that has value to us, and it has value to the people who receive the coins,” he says.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers signed dozens of bills in March that would invest $10 million in support of crime and human trafficking victims. A new formal partnership between Wisconsin Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force (WAHTTF) and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR) addresses the prevalence of human trafficking in Wisconsin’s Indigenous communities. In April, Wisconsin signed two new missing person alerts into law, an effort to strengthen the state’s existing AMBER Alert system. The Prince Act expands Wisconsin’s missing person alerts for children after the murders of 5-year-old Prince McCree in 2023 and 10-year-old Lily Peters in 2022. In both cases, law enforcement didn’t have enough information to satisfy the strict requirements for issuing an AMBER Alert. As part of the Act, a new Purple Alert includes missing children under age 10 and children under the age of 18 incapable of returning home without help due to a disability.

By Denise Gee Peacock

The work of the AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP) and its Minnesota-based partners was front-page news this week in the state’s largest newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The June 9, 2024, article—entitled “Amber Alerts help avert nightmares: State’s system finds kids, builds on success”—was written by reporter Kim Hyatt.

“AMBER Alert finds missing children with efficiency, spreading lifesaving information statewide in an instant and leading to swift recoveries,” Hyatt reports. “Since Minnesota launched the program in 2002, all but one of the 46 children subject of the alerts here were safely recovered—most within the same day.”

The state’s success with AMBER Alert “does not mean the system is static,” Hyatt noted. “It continues to improve through training and by spreading to new communities 22 years after it was initiated by the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA).”

Photo of AATTAP-AIIC team with Minnesota Tribes and law enforcement during a Technology Toolkits presentation in May 2023. — The AATTAP’s AMBER Alert in Indian Country (AIIC) team provided free Technology Toolkits to Minnesota’s 11 federally recognized Tribes in May 2023. The AIIC was created after passage of the Ashlynne Mike AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act of 2018, which provides training and technical assistance to Tribes to foster stronger and faster communication and with regional, state, and federal law enforcement partners.

The article includes these highlights:

Since inception of the state’s AMBER Alert program in 2002, 46 children have been the focus of AMBER Alerts. Nearly half of those children (22) were safely recovered in less than three hours. One child, Alayna Ertl, was not able to be safely recovered.
In 2013, Minnesota became the first state in the nation to successfully send AMBER Alerts to cellphones, which led to the quick recovery of a baby in Minneapolis.
The state’s most recent AMBER Alert was the first to be issued by a Minnesota Tribe (the Red Lake Tribal Police). The alert led to the successful recovery of a missing 3-year-old child.
Interviews with two native (and current) Minnesotans who not only have made significant impacts in Minnesota, but in the nation—and beyond:
- Patty Wetterling, a longtime advocate for missing children. She is the mother of Jacob Wetterling, who was abducted at age 11 on October 22, 1989, by a masked gunman near their home in St. Joseph, Minnesota. (Jacob’s remains were found nearly 27 years after his abduction, and his abductor charged with murder.) Wetterling co-founded and is past director of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s counseling network Team HOPE, and has shared countless victim impact sessions with law enforcement across the U.S.—much of them for the AATTAP and its parent organization, the National Criminal Justice Training Center of Fox Valley Technical College. (Read more about Wetterling’s work for U.S. Department of Justice resource, When Your Child is Missing: A Family Survival Guide, and her new book, Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope.)
- Child protection expert Janell Rasmussen. Rasmussen serves as Administrator of the AATTAP, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Justice to provide training and technical assistance to law enforcement throughout the United States and its territories, Indian Country, and abroad. Early in Rasmussen’s career she worked as AMBER Alert Coordinator for the Minnesota BCA—and became a good friend of the Wetterling family. Read more about her AATTAP work here.
Insight into the state’s AMBER Alert work from BCA Superintendent Drew Evans. “There’s only so many law enforcement officers that are out working at any given time. Yet we have nearly six million Minnesotans that can be our eyes and ears out in the community, and everybody has a vested interest in recovering our children,” he told the Star Tribune. (Note: The Star Tribune reported that access to AMBER Alerts is spreading to new communities, but everyone in the state has had the ability to request AMBER Alerts since the state plan was created in 2002.)

Photo showing Patty Wetterling (second from right), Janell Rasmussen (far right), Donna Norris (mother of Amber Hagerman, center), U.S. DOJ Assistant Attorney General Deborah J. Daniels (second from left), and abduction survivor Tamara Brooks (far left) at the first national AMBER Alert Conference in 2003. — At the first national AMBER Alert Conference in 2003, Patty Wetterling (second from right) and Janell Rasmussen (far right) are photographed with Donna Norris (center), the mother of AMBER Alert namesake Amber Hagerman. Also shown are then-U.S. DOJ Assistant Attorney General Deborah J. Daniels (second from left), and abduction survivor Tamara Brooks (far left). “There’s strength in the resilience of these searching parents,” Wetterling told the *Star Tribune*. Rasmussen notes that when this photograph was taken, she was pregnant with her daughter, who is expected to graduate next year with a degree in criminal justice.

Group photo of AATTAP-NCJTC-family survivors at the 2024 National Missing Children's Day commemoration in Washington, DC.

Participants at the OJJDP Family Survivor Roundtable Discussion in 2024

Alternate view of OJJDP-AATTAP-NCTJC roundtable meeting with family survivors

Photo of sibling survivor Heather talking at the Family Roundtable Discussion at OJJDP headquarters in 2024

Dr. Noelle Hunter and Jeffery Morehouse at the OJJDP Family Survivor Roundtable Discussion

AATTAP team members and family survivors await of the start of the 2024 National Missing Children’s Day event at the U.S. Department of Justice Great Hall on May 22 in Washington D.C.

AATTAP team members and family survivors pose for a selfie before the 2024 National Missing Children’s Day commemoration.

AATTAP Administrator Janell Rasmussen congratulates the 2024 National Missing Children’s Day poster winner, Hanna L., a fifth grader from Chesnee, South Carolina. She and Hanna are shown with Hanna’s mother (back) and South Carolina AMBER Alert Coordinator Alex Schelble (right).

Photo of the winning poster with this quote from the South Carolina fifth grader, Hanna L., who created it: "Those who help bring back missing children change the whole picture completely."

Family survivors Dr. Noelle Hunter (right) and her daughter, Rysa, are shown during a group visit to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.

Also photographed during the NCMEC visit were (from left) sibling survivor Heather, family survivor Yvonne Ambrose, and sibling survivor Kimber.

AATTAP Administrator Janell Rasmussen (standing) welcomes family survivors and others to a reception in honor of the forthcoming sibling-survivor resource, What About Me?

14. NCJTC Executive Director Brad Russ (right) shares a hug with parent survivor and longtime advocate for missing children, Patty Wetterling, during the AATTAP reception.

Shown at the reception for family survivors are (from left): NCJTC Executive Director Brad Russ, AATTAP Special Projects Associate Helen Connelly, AATTAP Administrator Janell Rasmussen, AATTAP Deputy Administrator Jenniffer Price-Lehmann, and AATTAP Project Coordinator Yesenia “Jesi” Leon-Baron.

From left: Family survivor Ahmad Rivazfar converses with AATTAP Project Coordinator Yesenia “Jesi” Leon-Baron and sibling survivor Heather at the reception.

Parent survivor Patty Wetterling (left) shares a moment with another mother who lost a child to abduction and murder: Pamela Foster. Foster is the mother of Ashlynne Mike, whose 2016 abduction and murder on the Navajo Nation Reservation in New Mexico led to the creation of the 2018 Ashlynne Mike AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act—and AATTAP’s AMBER Alert in Indian Country initiative.

By Denise Gee Peacock

At the 41st National Missing Children’s Day commemoration May 22, 2024 in Washington, D.C., staff members from the AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program and National Criminal Justice Training Center accompanied family members of missing children who have helped produce two multimedia resources for the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP): When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide and the forthcoming What About Me? Finding Your Path When Your Brother or Sister Is Missing.

On the day before the Missing Children’s Day commemoration, the AATTAP-hosted family members paid a visit to the Alexandria, Virginia, headquarters of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). Afterward they attended an AATTAP reception recognizing them for their contributions to ensuring family members across the nation have access to the latest information and resources. They also were shown highlights of videos that will be featured on the Family Survival Guide website along with the publication once released. (Stay tuned to The AMBER Advocate for more details.)

Recognition and collaboration for better understanding—and a clear path forward

During the National Missing Children’s Day ceremony, the group received thanks for their efforts from U.S. Assistant Attorney General Amy L. Solomon, OJJDP Administrator Liz Ryan, and NCMEC President and CEO Michelle DeLaune—as well as attendee applause when they were asked to stand for recognition. They also heard from nationally revered parent-advocate and retired AATTAP-NCJTC Associate Patty Wetterling, who was a featured speaker at the event. Patty is the mother of Jacob Wetterling, who was abducted and murdered in 1989. (Read more about her search for him, and her new book, Dear Jacob, here.) Wetterling also helped update the new Family Survival Guide.

Following through on a commitment made by OJJDP Administrator Liz Ryan last year during her impactful meeting with the Family Survival Guide contributors at the conclusion of the Missing Children’s Day ceremony, this year’s event included an inaugural, private Family Roundtable meeting during which both Family Survival Guide and Sibling Guide family members discussed their experiences with being a part of these projects, their ongoing needs and goals as surviving family members who have experienced a missing child or sibling, and offered OJJDP and AATTAP leaders recommendations on ways to best support families and more broadly promulgate awareness and distribution of these and other critically important resources for family, law enforcement, community and child advocates.

“The AATTAP was honored to be invited by Administrator Ryan and other OJJDP leadership to facilitate a discussion with the families of missing and murdered children. We discussed ways to improve law enforcement response, preparedness, family support and protecting children. Bringing the important perspectives of both parents and siblings, they bravely and earnestly offered their personal stories and messages of hope for those facing the same unthinkable situation.”

Janell Rasmussen
Administrator, AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program

Commemoration highlights

Each year, the Justice Department also honors agencies, organizations, law enforcement officials, and others whose exemplary heroic efforts to help recover missing children and prosecute people who harm them.

“Our commemoration is taking a new format this year,” Ryan said. “OJJDP decided not only to highlight the tremendous work of law enforcement others in efforts to protect children, but also to take this opportunity to address the challenge is in this work— to learn more about issues related to missing kids, and hold in depth conversations with youth and families of missing and murdered children and other experts on these related topics.”

Following the commemoration, a cadre of experts, including a youth advocate with lived experience in the foster care system, participated in a panel discussion on the reasons why so many children and young adults go missing from care. “They will suggest ways we can improve collaboration and to ensure the health and well-being of these children,” Ryan explained.

Ryan next recognized “members of family roundtable—parents, siblings and other family members with a loved one who has gone missing. They know firsthand the torment, confusion and emotional exhaustion of losing a child,” she said. “They lived it and they have channeled that sorrow into resources to helping others. Each of the family roundtable members here today has contributed to two important guidance documents."

When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide was announced at the 2023 Missing Children’s Day event. The new fifth edition provides a wider range of missing child situations; gives families immediate access to information via its online format; and allows them to hear parents’ advice and encouragement from the parents themselves, who speak directly to them through powerful videos.

As was the case with the Family Survival Guide project, the What About Me? project was developed by AATTAP’s publications team with guidance and oversight from the OJJDP. And both projects where shepherded by Helen Connelly, a former program administrator for Fox Valley Technical College (FVTC)—home to AATTAP and the NCJTC.

The new sibling survival guide will help a missing child’s siblings understand both the emotional turmoil surrounding the crisis and the ongoing search for their sibling. It will offer advice and resources; tips on self-care, mental health, and family dynamics; guidance on dealing with law enforcement, the media, and court; first-hand insight on what to expect and how to cope.

Looking back—and ahead

This year marks the 40th anniversary of NCMEC, which has contributed to the safe recovery of more than 400,000 missing children.

Additionally, the OJJDP is celebrating 50th anniversary of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. The law that established our office OJJDP has supported youth and families across the nation, providing federal funds owing to states, territories, Tribes, and communities to protect children prevent delinquency and transform juvenile justice systems.”

“As you know thousands of children go missing in the U.S. every year,” Ryan said. “While most are safely recovered, others are found deceased and never identified. Currently there are more than 1,000 children whose remains have been found, but have not been identified. We want to help name them and return them to their families, communities and loved ones.”

The OJJDP and NCMEC, with support from the DOJ—and training and technical assistance from the AATTAP and NCJTC—will work with state and local law enforcement agencies to identify these children, Ryan explained, adding, “they deserve no less.”

Wetterling to DOJ & NCMEC: ‘You Save Lives. You Saved Mine.’

NCMEC President and CEO Michelle DeLaune welcomed Patti Wetterling to speak, recognizing her as “a longtime friend and a personal source of inspiration.”

“Her son, Jacob, who went missing when he was 11 years old, was abducted near their home in Minnesota,” she said. “Patty has given her life to advocating for her son. She has raised a beautiful family. She is a fierce mother and has changed this world with every person she speaks to.”

“We're so honored that you could be with us today,” added Attorney General Solomon. “We’re indebted to you for your years of advocacy on behalf of missing children and for the work that you continue to do to claim a brighter future for our children.”

The following is an excerpt of Wetterling’s remarks at the 2024 National Missing Children’s Day event:

I want to thank you, Liz Ryan, for meeting with the group, this amazing group. [She gestures to the families group attending the ceremony.] I belong over there with you, my heart is with you, and we draw strength from you. And I also want to thank everybody at NCMEC and the DOJ. You save lives, you saved mine.

National Missing Children's Day is an amazing time to shine a light on a dark topic. When my son Jacob was kidnapped, I knew nothing about crimes against children. ‘Who would do that?’ I cried! ‘Who would harm a child?’ It is an unimaginable pain.

After a few days, sleep deprived and depressed, I crawled into bed and pull the covers over my head and decided I'm never gonna get out of bed again. It's too hard. It hurts too much. I can't do it. With tears streaming down my face, I suddenly saw Jacob curled up in a ball somewhere saying the same thing. “I can't do this anymore. It's too hard. They're never going to find me.”

Screaming I got up and said, ‘Hold on Jacob, we will find you! But you have to stay strong!’

I got out of bed. That decision to get out of bed was the first of many choices that we made. And for me, it was in the early days—and 34 years that have followed—I decided I couldn’t live in the darkness, and I chose to seek light. Instead, I chose to fight for the world that Jacob knew and loved—a world that was fair and kind and safe for kids.

When I was given that phone number for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, I learned so much about the problem; how many children were missing and exploited and what we all needed to do to bring them home. Most kids come home because somebody is aware of their abduction. They look at the pictures. And if they see something unusual about a child, or a child in a bad situation, they trust their instincts and call the police.

We tried to make sure everybody got Jacob’s pictures. We had to mail pictures out back in 1989. We sent them all over. But my favorite story was when a couple was traveling from Minnesota to Florida, and they thought they saw Jacob. They recognized the picture and said, ‘He was with a man who's very thin and he didn’t look like he wanted to be with this guy.’ But they didn't know who to call. So eventually they called the FBI in Minneapolis. When they described the man that this boy was with the FBI agent knew who they were talking about… they caught up with him in Flagstaff, Arizona. And clearly [the child they found with him] wasn't Jacob.

But one 12-year-old boy got to go home because somebody was aware of the problem. They looked at the pictures and they took that extra step of being there for the child. In those 34 years since Jacob was kidnapped, I've learned that collectively, we are strong when we pool ideas and resources. Through Team HOPE and the family and sibling survival guides. We support each other and offer assistance to other families walking down this difficult path.

When a when a child is missing, it affects the entire world. Classmates, teachers, neighbors, cousins, friends—all have their worlds turned upside down… We have to keep missing children in our hearts until we can hold them in our arms again.

We are all the hope for all missing children, as well as all children who are home safe today. We can never give up hope. And together, we can, and we will, build a safer world for all of our children.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said he is interested in creating a “Lily Alert” that could be used for a missing or abducted child – but with fewer criteria than an AMBER Alert. An online petition was started after 10-year-old Lily Peters was murdered by a 14-year-old boy. She was supposed to ride her bike home, and when she did not arrive, she was reported missing. An AMBER Alert was not issued because authorities didn’t have descriptive information about the suspect or the suspect’s vehicle. “I think we should look at that,” Evans said. “Clearly it’s not something that would cost a significant amount of money, and it seems a reasonable approach.”

The Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin, and the Chairman of the AMBER Alert Europe Foundation, Frank Hoen, sign the Memorandum of Understanding in Belgrade, February 24, 2022.

The Republic of Serbia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on February 24, 2022, with AMBER Alert Europe to help the country improve efforts to find missing and abducted children. AMBER Alert Europe now has 43 members. “You can never be sure enough you have done everything you could to save your youngest and dearest; the initiative of AMBER Alert is precious, valuable and important,” said Aleksander Vulin, Serbia Minister of the Interior.

More than 26,000 service stations are now posting AMBER Alerts and information about missing children on television monitors installed on gas pumps. The national media network GSTV started the program ADAM (Automated Delivery of Alerts on Missing Children) in 2019. GSTV is working with NCMEC and said the gas pump screens reach 96 million people in 48 states each month. “It’s not just about advertisements and entertaining, but taking the opportunity to engage our viewers at a time where they’re extremely attentive,” said GSTV executive Violeta Ivezaj. “There isn’t a whole lot to do when you’re pumping gas.”

The Dutch National Police agreed to continue using AMBER Alerts after earlier announcing it would use another alerting system. In April 2021, Netherlands was going to switch to using the Burgernet system for child abduction alerts. In September, the Dutch National Police signed an agreement to take over issuing the alerts from AMBER Alert in Europe. Netherlands was an early adopter of AMBER Alerts in 2008 and has pioneered innovative ways to notify the public about abducted children. The Dutch AMBER Alert system has been deployed 1,042 times. In 94% of the cases, the child was found alive and well.

Virginia launched a new alert system on July 1, 2021, to be used when adults with autism go missing. Efforts to create the alert started after a 29-year-old woman with autism went missing and drowned in a swampy area a mile away from her home. The Virginia State Police also began using a new communications platform to notify the public about the state’s six different alerts. Virginia has an AMBER Alert, Senior Alert, Critically Missing Adult “Ashanti” Alert, Missing Child with Autism Alert, and the new alert for missing adults with autism. The platform is designed to get the key details out to the public more quickly.

Thousands of Alberta, Canada, residents are speaking out against using the emergency alert for COVID-19 health measures because it may cause people to stop paying attention to other emergencies like AMBER Alerts. “I totally thought it was an AMBER Alert, I was panicked for whatever child was in danger and that was kind of my initial reaction to it,” said Kimberly Roy. Government officials say the alerts are needed to prevent further spread of the virus during the worst pandemic in this lifetime.

A majority of parliamentary members in the Netherlands support keeping AMBER Alerts for child abduction notifications instead of adopting a new program called the Burgernet system. The lawmakers passed a motion in June 2021 to stop the change scheduled for July 22. Burgernet is being used by local police for suspects wanted in urgent criminal investigations and government officials say it is cheaper than the AMBER Alert program. “AMBER Alert has been a success for years. It has enormous reach, great results and works internationally. There’s no reason to throw it away so abruptly,” said Joost Eerdmans, co-sponsor of the motion.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is endorsing a new search network to help in high-risk missing children investigations. The Missing Children Society of Canada’s (MCSC) Child Search Network provides police with the ability to share information and collaborate with one another and the public to help find high-risk missing children who do not meet the AMBER Alert criteria. The system has a database with real-time details about missing children cases. A date for release of the network is pending.

Law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands plan to replace AMBER Alert and Missing Child Alert notifications in July with a separate citizen warning system called Burgernet. Minister of Justice and Security Ferd Grapperhaus said the change will create a more coherent, centralized service for warnings about criminal suspects as well as missing adults and children.

AMBER Alert Europe President and Founder Frank Hoen believes the switch is a mistake. “When the term ‘AMBER Alert’ is mentioned people know that a missing child is in danger,” he said. “We are gravely worried that with the disappearance of the AMBER Alert, the collaboration between the public and the police will also vanish.”

AMBER Alert Netherlands estimates 95 percent of the Dutch public knows about the purpose of the AMBER Alert. Since November 2008, the Netherlands issued 30 AMBER Alerts and 1,010 Missing Child Alerts. The missing children were found safe in 94% of cases, often with the assistance of the public.

The Native Women’s Association of Canada wants law enforcement to update how it applies the AMBER Alert criteria for cases involving Indigenous girls. The demand comes after a 14-year-old Indigenous girl was found in a wooded area with the suspect a week after she was missing. Law enforcement listed the girl as a runaway, but the group said an AMBER Alert should have been issued because of her age and the larger issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

“They may have run away, but we have to look at it more in depth,” said Lorraine Whitman, president of the association. “We just can’t take it as a case that they wanted to leave. We have to look into it because there are more underlying areas that we have to investigate as well.”

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Nova Scotia is reviewing its protocols and policies.

A case that ended with the safe recovery of four missing children from the Arapaho Tribe in Wyoming became the 1,000th AMBER Alert success story. AMBER Alerts were issued in Wyoming and Colorado for the missing children, ages 5, 6, 11, and 14. Authorities believed they were be in imminent danger after being taken by their non-custodial mother. A citizen saw the alert and helped police recover the children from a motel in Colorado. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has been documenting all successful AMBER Alert recoveries after the program began in 1996.

On March 11, 2020, the AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program and AMBER Alert in Indian Country (AATTAP-AIIC) team, in partnership with the Wyoming State AMBER Alert Program, conducted a one-day AMBER Alert in Indian Country Implementation Meeting with the Wind River Inter-Tribal Council in Fort Washakie, Wyoming.

The Wind River Inter-Tribal Council is comprised of members from the two Tribes on the Wind River Indian Reservation—the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho—which have about 12,500 total enrolled members.

Representatives from the Wind River Indian Community, Wind River Police Department, and surrounding state and county law enforcement agencies were also in attendance. The purpose of this meeting was to bring together representatives from the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho, and the Wyoming State AMBER Alert Program, to develop strategies for implementing AMBER Alert Plans for Tribes in the aftermath of a child abduction.

During this meeting, staff from the Wyoming State AMBER Alert Program provided a presentation on its missing persons programs and resources, specifically explaining the protocol of working collaboratively to request and issue an AMBER Alert. Presenters emphasized their continued commitment to cooperate and assist the Wind River Indian Reservation and the Wind River Chief of Police with continued AMBER Alert training.

The Wind River Tribal Community representatives and State Representatives also met to discuss state resources and valuable information to ensure a cooperative effort to enhance response in the event of an endangered missing or abducted child. The meeting concluded with a discussion of the role and duties of a possible AMBER Alert Coordinator within the Tribe to represent the Wind River Indian Community, and with concurrence to work with the Wyoming AMBER Alert Program on the development of an AMBER Alert activation plan for the Tribe.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP) is encouraging residents to subscribe to ‘Mo-Alerts’ for immediate receipt of AMBER Alerts issued in the state. MSHP launched the upgraded AMBER Alert system in December 2019 which streamlines the process for faster public alerting. The new system was first used on January 17, 2020, for a 2-year-old child. A resident saw the AMBER Alert and the child was located minutes after the alert was issued. Missouri residents can sign up at moalerts.mo.gov/.

A couple was arrested after the Attorney General of Mexico City offered a 2 million pesos reward (about $80,000 USD) for information leading to the capture of the people involved with kidnapping and killing a 7-year-old girl. A woman picked up the girl from her elementary school on February 11, 2020, and said she was going to take her home. Surveillance video shows the woman and girl walking down the street. Five days later the child was found deceased in a garbage bag. Police say the woman gave the girl as a “gift” to her abusive husband. The child was killed when the husband saw a TV report of her disappearance and the active police search. An autopsy revealed the child had been sexually assaulted before her death. The Mexican Public Ministry is seeking the maximum penalty for both the abductor and the murderer, a sentence of 70 years each.

The Lithuanian National Police officially joined AMBER Alert Europe and will now issue alerts in child abduction cases. On October 10, 2019, Lithuania joined 21 countries with 33 organizations using the tools and methods of the AMBER Alert program. “(This) enables us to spread information about these cases all over Europe, while learning about the latest technologies in the search for missing persons. All of the above, will highly contribute to finding missing children,” said Irena Ambrasaite, Chief Specialist at the Lithuanian Criminal Police Bureau.

The Utah Department of Public Safety requested $2 million from state legislators this summer for a surveillance program that uses artificial intelligence to gather social media posts, traffic cameras and other resources. The company Banjo designed the program to be used in real-time emergencies. The Utah Attorney General’s Office used it for training in an AMBER Alert situation. Legislators expressed concern about overreach and privacy violations as they considered results of testing with the state’s Department of Transportation and consider expansion of the technology to other areas of state operations.

More than 40 law enforcement officers from 16 countries gathered in Prague for the second European Expert Network on Missing Children Forum. The training held September 4-6, 2019, included real-life missing person cases to learn about the best practices for safely recovering missing and abducted children. “When a child goes missing and they need support from colleagues in another country, they will know exactly who to call at 3 a.m.,” said Frank Hoen, Chairman and Founder of AMBER Alert Europe. “This will highly contribute to saving more missing children, which of course is our ultimate goal.”

The Brisbane, Australia, City Council started a partnership with the Outdoor Media Association (OMA) to begin posting AMBER Alerts on outdoor signs. The digital signs will post the abducted child’s photo and other information within 30 minutes after an AMBER Alert is issued. “We hope the Brisbane Amber Alerts pilot program will inform how we can build a system to roll out Amber Alerts across Australia,” said Charmaine Moldrich, OMA CEO. The OMA is working with the Out of Home Advertising Association of America and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the United States on the pilot program.

Rae-Leigh Bradbury was eight-weeks-old when the first successful AMBER Alert was issued after she was taken by her babysitter in Arlington, Texas. She was found unharmed 13 hours later and her abductor served ten years in prison.

“That was the hardest 13 hours of my life ever,” said her mother Patricia A. Sokolowski. “The (detectives) came to me at about midnight and said ‘we’re going to activate an AMBER Alert. We haven’t used it, it’s the first time. We want it to work.’”

The emergency response system was put in place two years earlier after the disappearance of Amber Hagerman. Bradbury was given the Hope Award by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) on May 25. She says her experience inspired her to intern for NCMEC in Austin, Texas.

“There are kids right now not knowing where their parents are. I just can’t imagine wondering, ‘Where’s my mom? Where’s my dad?’” Bradbury said.

The disappearance of 11-year-old Madeleine McCann in 2007 from Algarve, Portugal, garnered international attention and eventually became the catalyst for AMBER Alert programs and additional resources to find missing and abducted children in Europe.

The case is the subject of a new Netflix series “The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann.” The missing girl’s mother, Kate McCann, also wrote a book detailing her efforts to get better alert systems for missing children in Europe. “It was clear to Gerry and me that if such a procedure had been in use in Portugal, Madeleine might have been swiftly tracked down,” wrote McCann.

What began as a runaway case changed after Ogdensburg, New York, police learned a missing 15-year-old girl may have been threatened and held captive by her boyfriend. The threat prompted officers to ask the New York State Police (NYSP) to issue an AMBER Alert for Olivia Roberts.

Roberts was reported missing on December 12, 2018, after meeting with her 27-year-old boyfriend, Kenneth Snyder. A month earlier, Snyder was charged with unlawful imprisonment for forcefully restraining her during a domestic violence incident. But Snyder fled from police as he was about to be transported from court to a secure facility.

On December 19, Roberts didn't show up after she asked a friend to pick her up. The same friend was then blocked from Roberts' Facebook account. He told police he was concerned Snyder may have taken control over Roberts' Facebook account. That same day Ogdensburg police asked the public on social media to help them find Roberts.

At 6:51 p.m. on December 20, a family member told police that Roberts made a call using Facebook and was screaming frantically for someone to come get her. The family member then heard a male voice asking what she was doing and the call suddenly went dead.

“There in fact was a particular incident and that's what led to the criteria change that led to the AMBER Alert,” said Ogdensburg Police Detective Mark Kearns.

NYSP received the request for an AMBER Alert; agents first made sure the child and suspect had been entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). They also started gathering information and photos of the child and suspect for the state's web-based public notification system for AMBER Alerts.

“We always have concern for the victim in every case we receive,” said NYSP Investigator Michael O'Connell. “We felt this child was being held against her will and in danger of serious bodily harm or death, thus meeting our criteria.”

The AMBER Alert was disseminated at 8:16 p.m. through faxes, emails, text messages, phone calls, highway signs, lotto terminals, broadcasters and social media. New York residents can also sign up to get the alerts at alert.ny.gov.

The NYSP Computer Crimes Unit contacted Facebook and learned the device Roberts used to make a call may have been in Massena, New York. Massena police officers arrived at an apartment and two adults claimed Roberts wasn't there.

Both adults were arrested after police discovered they told Roberts to go out a window and hide on the roof. Snyder was later found and taken into custody. The AMBER Alert was canceled at 9:30 p.m., a little more than an hour after it was issued.

“We were relieved to learn the child was recovered safe and unharmed,” said O'Connell. “It was a challenge to have people helping the suspect and child avoid the police.”

New York has issued 89 AMBER Alerts since the program began in 2002. O'Connell has been involved with 20 alerts since 2016. He said lessons are learned with every alert. “This case reiterates a need for continual communication with requesting agencies as new information develops,” he said. “We train often and try to prepare as best as we can.”

A Largo, Florida, mother accused of murdering her 2-year-old has also been charged with lying to police after an AMBER Alert was issued. Clarissa Stinson claimed her son was abducted after they accepted a ride from a stranger on September 1, 2018. Police say the lies cost them critical time in finding the boy and resulted in $500,000 in law enforcement costs. Fifteen agencies, including 163 law enforcement officers and 28 staff members, took part in the search. “A price cannot be put on that,” said Largo Police spokesperson Randy Chaney. Stinson could face an additional five years in prison for giving the false story to police.

The Ontario, Ohio, Police Department is using two drones to search in AMBER Alerts and other cases involving missing juveniles or older adults. The department used money from federally seized drugs to purchase the drones, which cost $14,000 each. The drones pro- vide live video feeds and have been used dozens of times, including when an AMBER Alert was activated. “Bottom line, this is irreplaceable technology,” said Ontario Police Chief Tommy Hill. “There is no value too great that we’d spare to save a life.”

A 25-year-old mother was arrested after telling Saraland, Alabama, police that her car was stolen by an ex-boyfriend with her 3-year-old son inside. Police issued an AMBER Alert and activated the Child Abduction Response Team (CART) to assist in the investigation. Police say the woman changed her story several times and they ultimately determined the child was with family members.

Police in Grand Prairie, Texas, charged a woman with making a false police report after an AMBER Alert was issued for her 10-month-old baby. Police say the woman wanted to speed up the recovery of her stolen car by claiming her child was in the back seat. Police determined the woman's car was stolen but that she did not have a baby.

The Bahamas started a pilot child abduction alert program in July 2018, similar to the U.S. AMBER Alert. The country is calling the notifications “Marco's Alert,” after 11-year-old Marco Archer who disappeared and was later found dead in 2011. The public has to opt-in to receive the alert but police can decide if the situation is so critical that a message will be sent to everyone regardless of opting in. The alerts can be sent by phone, email, pager, fax, computer pop-up screens, and social media.

Canada tested its new emergency alert system on May 14, 2018. The system sends messages, including AMBER Alerts, to all cell phones in the country. The Alert Ready system is similar to the U.S. Wireless Emergency Alert system. Testing identified a glitch of sorts, as some people thought an actual AMBER Alert had been issued and some areas did not receive an alert sound. “The review ultimately determined there was a gap created during a recent server migration,” said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Staff Sgt. Annie Linetau. “The test allowed us to identify a few issues, correct them, as well as implement a back-up system.”

While holding a cell phone when driving is illegal in most parts of Canada, the law does recognize the new Alert Ready system, allowing drivers to use their cell phones when alerts are issued. Most provincial laws currently allow drivers to use their cell phones to contact emergency services or to learn about an emergency in the driver's vicinity.

Lithuania is the first Nordic country and the 19th member of the European Union to implement an AMBER Alert system. Lithuania began the abducted child alert system on March 14, 2018, to help recover missing and abducted children. The program alerts law enforcement and sends photos and information about the missing child to all Facebook users within 200 kilometers from where the child was last located. Belgium, Cyprus, The Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, and the United Kingdom already have a national child alert system in place. Bulgaria also launched its national AMBER Alert program earlier this year.

Peru has launched an AMBER Alert system to help find missing and abducted children immediately after police are notified of their disappearance. Under the previous law, police had to wait 24 hours before they began looking for a missing child. Peru Minister Board President César Villanueva said he will also increase the number of emergency centers from 50 to 225 to better assist victims of sexual or gender-crimes. He is also increasing the number of municipal departments for children and teenagers. “One of our government's main priorities is the protection of women and children against all types of violence,” stated Villanueva. “We cannot accept that this type of violence is still being tolerated by our society and by our public organizations.”

The Iron County, Utah, Sheriff's Office recently honored Joseph Paul for helping find four girls who were being held captive in two locations. Paul started looking after an AMBER Alert was issued December 4, 2017. He spotted a man matching the suspect's description and called police. “Paul's quick thinking and intuition that night ultimately saved the lives of the four girls who had been kidnapped,” said Iron County Sheriff Lieutenant Del Schosser. The Sheriff's Office reported the girls were in extremely poor health and physical condition because they were being held without any source of heat or adequate clothing for the harsh elements.

Michigan changed its criteria for issuing an AMBER Alert in 2017 so it would only be used for cases of child abductions for victims under the age of 18. At that same time, the state added an Endangered Missing Persons Advisory to notify law enforcement and the public about missing person cases that do not meet AMBER Alert criteria. After issuing 15 AMBER Alerts in 2016, Michigan issued just four alerts in 2017 and one in 2018. Michigan State Police said people are now paying more attention to AMBER Alerts and the Endangered Missing Advisory has become a great success in finding missing people of any age.

A Missouri man is facing charges after reportedly ramming a vehicle and firing at a driver he suspected was wanted in connection with an Iowa AMBER Alert. Matthew Golden was traveling on Interstate 80 when he heard the alert for two missing boys from Toronto, Iowa. The alert included information about a 2006 Hyundai Sonata with Illinois license plates. Police say Golden rammed a white panel van with Florida plates more than once and then fired two shots at the driver. The driver was not injured.

A Joplin, Missouri, man is being remembered for his work in creating a local form of the AMBER Alert. John Cruzan passed away on May 8, 2018. Before local police in Missouri completed their work on that state's AMBER Alert system, Cruzan created a website for local law enforcement to use in posting information and photos of missing children. While this local alerting system was decommissioned when other state and national alerting technologies were implemented, Cruzan's efforts were recognized by Missouri law enforcement and citizens as important, and his generosity remembered in developing the local alerting system.

The AMBER Alert Europe Police Network now has more than 50 law enforcement experts from 17 countries to help find missing and abducted children. The network was established in 2014 to assist law enforcement officers in quickly contacting and consulting with each other on missing child cases. These contacts are crucial, as 37.5% of Europeans live near bordering areas, and a missing child can easily cross to a neighboring country. Because of the network, police experts can easily find and maintain information on a single point-of-contact for missing persons in another country.

European law enforcement officials brought home 93% of the children safely after issuing AMBER Alerts in 2017. AMBER Alerts were issued 27 times for 31 children.

The success stories include the Netherlands' recovery of a 15-year-old deaf and autistic boy after an AMBER Alert was issued. Police believed he was in imminent danger due to weather conditions. More than 12 million Dutch citizens responded to the alert. A crucial tip helped reunite the boy with his family.

The Czech Republic issued an AMBER Alert for a 2-year-old girl who had been missing for two months. The girl's mother abducted the child but turned herself into police after the alert was issued. The child was found in good health.

The Navajo Nation can now issue its own AMBER Alerts when a child is abducted on Tribal lands. The AMBER Alert system is in effect for the 11 counties that cover the reservation in Arizona and Utah.

According to Harlan Cleveland, Emergency Coordinator and Acting Director for the Navajo Nation Department of Emergency Management, the system has been live since the beginning of 2018.

“In the event we do need to issue an AMBER Alert, we can issue it on the Navajo Nation,” said Cleveland.

The Navajo Nation has not yet issued an AMBER Alert but did issue an Endangered Missing Person Advisory on January 26, 2018. A man took his 15-month-old daughter despite not having legal custody. The suspect and the child were found the next morning and two people were arrested.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) is recommending a simplification of the state's AMBER Alert program. The KBI reviewed the system following concerns raised when an AMBER Alert failed to go out to cellphones after a mother and 3 children were abducted. The report recommends speeding up the process by giving more officers authority to request an alert. Other recommendations include creating a checklist to be used when activating an AMBER Alert, inviting media to participate in AMBER Alert reviews, establishing an advisory board that meets annually, and focusing on technological advances for the program.

A group of 35 German members of the European parliament are calling upon all European countries to have an AMBER Alert program. Currently, 17 of the 28 countries of the European Union have child abduction alert plans.

“To save missing children it is crucial to act immediately, every minute counts,” said German Parliament Member Bernd Kölmel. “German citizens need to be informed as soon as possible via all available media. It is absolutely necessary that Germany builds a modern, digital AMBER Alert system.”

So far just 8 European countries have issued at least one AMBER Alert.

At an August 12, 2016, meeting the Switzerland Federal Police shared best practices to protect missing children with AMBER Alert Europe. These best practices included a 5-point plan: a bigger, stronger AMBER Alert network; more flexibility in issuing child alerts; better cross-border information sharing; better cross-border police cooperation; and improving the identification and protection of children at borders. The plan is supported by a majority of the 465 members of the European Parliament.

Photo of a woman (Janell Rasmussen) speaking at a table with microphone — Janell Rasmussen

Minnesota AMBER Alert Coordinator Janell Rasmussen has stepped down after setting up the state's AMBER Alert Program and overseeing the recovery of abducted children for the past 16 years. Rasmussen now serves as the Deputy Director for the Archdiocese of St. Paul, Minneapolis, where she plans to continue her work in protecting children.

“This has been the most meaningful work that I have ever done,” said Rasmussen. “I can point blank say, kids are alive today because of the AMBER Alert program.”

Minnesota was the 7th state in the U.S. to implement a statewide AMBER Alert program, along with a missing and endangered persons alert through the Minnesota Crime Alert Network for cases not meeting AMBER Alert criteria.

“One of my fondest memories was the very first interstate success with Utah,” said Rasmussen. “The work between the two states in this case and the many interstate cases that followed were a direct result of the training and relationships developed for AMBER Alert coordinators.”

The case occurred in 2003, when an 11-year-old girl was abducted in Minnesota and police had information the suspected abductor was taking the child to Utah. Utah issued the AMBER Alert. A Utah State trooper monitored one of the highways likely to be used by the suspect and calculated the approximate travel time from Minnesota. Moments later the trooper recognized the vehicle based on the description in the AMBER Alert. The suspect was arrested and the child was recovered safely.

“I cannot tell you how hard it is to see Janell leave,” said James Walters, AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program Director. “Janell has been such an important part of the AMBER Alert program not only in Minnesota but everywhere else. She had been a vital mentor and provided guidance to AMBER Alert coordinators and Missing Person Clearinghouse managers across the country.”

Rasmussen credits the U.S. Department of Justice, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Fox Valley Technical College and her colleagues for helping make the AMBER Alert program a success. “When children were abducted, we were ready to work together to bring them home,” she said.

Man (Mark Simpson) standing at podium — Retired Texas Detective Mark Simpson

Before the AMBER Alert came into existence, a seasoned detective was determined to find the person who would abduct and kill a little girl in Arlington, Texas. On January 13, 1996, 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was snatched while riding her bicycle. Amber's abandoned body was found in an outdoor location 4 days later.

Sergeant Mark Simpson was the Task Force Supervisor for the case and worked with numerous detectives and agents for months to determine how Amber could be taken in broad daylight without anyone noticing. He also began working with broadcasters, law enforcement officers and members of the public to develop an alert that could be used when a child is abducted.

“Although we truly believed it would be a powerful tool, our goal was to make the process of issuing the AMBER Alert a quick, simple exercise,” said Simpson. “The AMBER Alert is now used in all 50 states and some foreign countries. None of us thought it would ever be used beyond the Dallas-Fort Worth area.”

During his 32 years with the Arlington Police, Simpson also implemented the Department's Cold Case Homicide Team, a “No Drop Policy” for domestic violence cases, a Sex Offender Registration Program and a Gang Suppression Task Force.

Although Simpson retired in 2007, he continues to present Amber's case at trainings so other law enforcement and public safety personnel might benefit from important lessons learned in the investigation of this tragic incident, while also contributing their ideas and strategies to the ongoing effort to identify and bring Amber's killer to justice.

Amber Hagerman's abduction is one of more than 20 case studies Simpson has developed while working as a consultant for the AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP). While he may be soft-spoken, the detective's voice has been heard loud and clear by law enforcement officers and other public safety professionals in hundreds of training events over the past decade.

“Doing and presenting the case studies is one of the most satisfying parts of my teaching,” said Simpson. “It lets me examine not only what the criminal acts were, but also how the investigators responded to a variety of scenarios and the impact of their actions.”

“Child abduction investigations are like no other police response. The best way to be successful is to preplan some of our responses and be able to anticipate some of the challenges. Our training not only makes the student aware of what the issues are when they are faced with a child abduction, but also how to make good decisions to move the investigation forward.”

Simpson has worked diligently through his case study development and many years of investigative experience to identify trends and specific challenges for children, parents and police officers when children go missing or are abducted. He shares what has and has not worked in these complex cases, collaborating with and informing law enforcement, families and community in a relevant and understandable way that resonates with audiences across the U.S. and internationally.

“When Amber Hagerman was abducted in 1996, there was not much training available in how to prosecute the investigation,” he said. “The program is not just instructors delivering lectures, it is that special group of investigators who have done the job, learned the lessons and are able to communicate those lessons to others.”

One of the most notable attributes when you meet Simpson is his humility. Despite all of his accomplishments, he is dedicated and driven to do more to help children. Besides offering the case studies, Simpson also teaches courses on Advanced Strategies in Child Abduction Investigations; Major Crimes Investigations Teams; Advanced Cold Case and Long-Term Missing Cases; Search, Canvass, and Recovery Strategies; and “Build A Course” classes. He also assists AATTAP with important curriculum development and technical assistance projects in a number of key areas, including tribal child protection initiatives and work with survivors and their families.

“For all of us who find a calling to crimes against children; the victims and those who perpetrate atrocities against them, there is always something we fall back on as an anchor to reality. For me it is my bride of 42 years, Donna,” said Simpson. “Throughout my career, she has been the one who kept me grounded in reality, pushing me when I needed it and supporting me in every way.”

Simpson does occasionally take a break and loves to go duck hunting with “a good dog, black coffee and the sounds and smells of a new day's dawn.”

Back at work, he continues to look for ways to promote AMBER Alert initiatives and programs, and to build and strengthen awareness and knowledge through effective training and resources. Simpson takes great satisfaction in the fact that the program has been expanded to include work on understanding, identifying and responding to the rapidly growing crime of human trafficking.

“We are changing the way we look at young girls and boys that wind up engaging in prostitution and related forms of involuntary servitude,” he said. “In the past they were often identified as suspects, when in fact they too were victims who found themselves in a situation they didn't know how to escape from.”

For Mark Simpson and so many others, a vigilant focus on Amber Hagerman's case will not cease until her murder is solved. It is also likely Simpson will remain ever-focused on combatting child abduction and other crimes against children, tirelessly working to help other law enforcement officers do the same.

An AMBER Alert was issued in Colorado on August 12, 2016, at 12:42 a.m. for a 5-year-old girl alleged to have been abducted. The girl was found later in the morning, and her mother was taken into custody on kidnapping, child abuse and other charges. The Colorado Bureau of Investigations emphasized the AMBER Alert is an important tool to find both suspects and children and encouraged the public not to silence emergency notifications during the nighttime hours. This case proved that those who receive or hear these late-night alerts can provide lifesaving witness and identification information on both children and suspects involved in these critical incidents

The Jefferson County Chiefs and Sheriff Association in Wisconsin recognized an Iowa man as the “2015 Citizen of the Year” after hearing an AMBER Alert and helping officers safely recover a 3-year-old Milwaukee girl. Authorities said a 32-year-old man forced the girl’s mother out of her car and drove off with the child still inside. Paul D. Smith was sitting in his hotel room when he saw the AMBER Alert on TV. He went out to the hotel parking lot and discovered the missing vehicle and called the sheriff’s department. Deputies arrested the suspect after he tried to flee his hotel room.

“My dad always said we are put on this earth to help one another and I try and honor him by doing that every time I get a chance,” said Smith at the awards ceremony. “I am so grateful and humbled that I was able to do that in your community and, with law enforcement, we were able to return a child to her home.”

A new study finds the AMBER Alert program is working in Europe but still needs improvement in some countries. Researchers Karen Shalev Greene and Charlie Hedges interviewed representatives of the AMBER Alert programs in the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, and Poland.

Of the 28 European Union (EU) member states, the study found 16 European countries have child alert systems; however, only eight countries have used the system at least once. The participating countries in the study are among the most active users of child alert systems, issuing 19 of the 23 EU alerts in 2015 (83%).

The study also found the following:

Public pressure caused the offenders to surrender to authorities.
The child was identified by a member of the public.
The alert and coordination that followed led to a police force in a different country finding and safely recovering the child.
Members of the public volunteered to search for the child, which assisted in police efforts.
The integrated rescue system proved very useful.

Photo of Fairbury, Nebraska, Police Chief Chad Sprunk — Fairbury, Nebraska, Police Chief Chad Sprunk

Megan Smetter woke up on the morning of Saturday, February 20, 2016, to discover her two-month-old son Jaxon, her friend Earnest Howard, 35, and her car were missing. She reported the incident to the Fairbury, Nebraska, Police Department for help at 7:15 a.m. An officer was immediately dispatched in an attempt to locate the missing vehicle and make contact with the suspect.

The initial responding officer contacted Fairbury Police Chief Chad Sprunk at 11:15 a.m. that morning and requested additional assistance; he also requested consideration of issuing an AMBER Alert. Chief Sprunk personally called the missing child’s mother to verify that the case met the criteria for an AMBER Alert.

“I was convinced it met the criteria because of the suspect’s prior drug use, violent criminal history, a previous attempted abduction of a child,” said Sprunk. “He was also not the biological father of the child, didn’t notify the mother he was taking [him] and refused to bring the child back.”

The Fairbury Police Department notified the media and law enforcement in the area about the possible abduction. The AMBER Alert was issued at 2:26 p.m.

Nebraska State Patrol Lieutenant Jeromy McCoy is the state’s AMBER Alert Coordinator. He was without his laptop when he received the call for the alert. He called another officer for help and the alert was quickly sent to the state’s electronic highway signs and broadcast via the Wireless Emergency Alert System. However, obtaining pictures of the suspect and victim required approximately 20 additional minutes before the AMBER Alert was posted to the Department’s website.

“These images were in a different format that caused our webpage to crash when we attempted to submit the AMBER Alert,” said Lieutenant McCoy. “We determined the problem and changed the format to a JPEG.”

The Fairbury Police Department has six full-time officers. The small department’s phones quickly starting ringing with tips and possible sightings of the suspect’s vehicle, including tips from Ohio, California, Kansas, Missouri and Texas. Help also started pouring in from several county sheriff’s offices, the Nebraska State Patrol, the FBI and several civilian organizations offering assistance in working tips and the investigation.

“I required everyone to contact the agency where the tip was generated,” said Chief Sprunk. “Absolutely no tip was set aside and not handled.”

This was the 18th AMBER Alert issued by Nebraska since its program began in 2002. It was the 7th alert issued by Lieutenant McCoy since he became a verification officer in 2007. He became the state’s AMBER Alert coordinator three years ago. However, it was the first alert for the Fairbury Police Department, and it added strain to AMBER Alert veterans as well as everyone who was new to the alert system.

“Obviously, you think the worst has happened to the child; however you still have hope the child is safe,” said Chief Sprunk. “It was extremely emotional not knowing what the outcome was going to be.”

“The longer an AMBER Alert goes on, the more worried I get,” added Lieutenant McCoy.

A citizen called to report the suspect’s vehicle was stuck in the mud in Fairbury. Police located and arrested Howard and the baby was taken to a local hospital. The AMBER Alert was cancelled at 6:41 p.m., about 4 hours after it was initiated.

“If I could see that person, I don’t know how I would be able to thank them,” expressed Megan Smetter in speaking to KOLN-TV about the person who provided the tip leading to Howard’s location. “I think there was more anger and fear I would never see him again.”

Howard was taken to jail and booked on charges including kidnapping, felony child abuse and making terroristic threats. His case is still pending and all suspects are presumed innocent unless they are convicted. Police said Howard also had a glass pipe used in smoking methamphetamine in his possession and could be charged at a later time with that offense.

“I do feel the AMBER Alert saved the child’s life,” said Chief Sprunk. “If the alert did not go out, the citizen who located the suspect and child would not have known about the abduction.”

The Fairbury Police Department has trained for years on the AMBER Alert system, but lessons are always learned after each alert—especially the first one.

“Time is of the essence,” said Chief Sprunk. “If there is any doubt, send the AMBER Alert out to the coordinator immediately. It was so easy and flawless working with the Nebraska State Patrol on getting the alert out.”

Nebraska also has a strong AMBER Alert committee that reviews every alert issued.

“We review problems and make changes based on input from media, law enforcement and other AMBER Alert partners,” added Lieutenant McCoy. “We have good discussions and try to make the alert process better after each one.”

Both the AMBER Alert coordinator and the police chief said this alert is further proof the AMBER Alert system is a vital tool to save abducted children.

“Children are vulnerable and can’t control their environment or circumstances they are put in,” said Lieutenant McCoy. “I do whatever I can do to protect this segment of our society.”

“Safety of the children is what motivates me,” added Chief Sprunk. “Children are helpless and fragile and it puts them in a very scary and unsafe environment.”

Twenty years ago on January 13, 1996, 9-year-old Amber Hagerman of Arlington, Texas, was abducted and subsequently assaulted and murdered. The tragic events and subsequent investigation of Amber’s death sparked what has grown from a local, to nationwide and now international effort to improve and expand efforts to locate, identify and safely recover abducted children.

The case of Amber Hagerman’s abduction and murder remains unresolved. During the initial investigation, a witness reported seeing a man in a black truck grab her off her bike and drive away. Four days following Amber’s disappearance, a man walking his dog found her body in a drainage ditch in Arlington.

A local citizen, Diane Simone, called a Dallas radio station the day Amber’s body was found and asked if local broadcasters could team up with law enforcement to somehow get information out immediately following a child abduction. Dallas and Fort Worth area broadcasters began work to establish a coordinated system with local law enforcement whereby they could warn the public when a child was kidnapped and in danger. Over the two decades that have followed, the AMBER Alert system has grown through grass-roots efforts at the local, regional and state levels. AMBER Alert programs are now operating in every state across the U.S., and have been developed in other countries around the world.

The AMBER Alert system bears Amber’s name, and also stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. AMBER Alert Programs have helped bring more than 800 children home safely. “If it wasn’t for Amber, we would not have the AMBER Alert today,” Donna Williams, Amber’s mother, told reporters.

Communities across the U.S. joined in observing National AMBER Alert Awareness Day on January 13, 2016. Here is a look at key milestones achieved over the past two decades:

2002: AMBER Alerts become nationally focused and highway signs are added to the warning system. President George W. Bush names the first National AMBER Alert Coordinator.
2003: The PROTECT Act is signed into law, strengthening the ability of law enforcement and the judicial system to prevent, investigate, prosecute, and punish violent crimes committed against children.
2005: A nationwide initiative to train Child Abduction Response Teams (CART) is launched.
2011: The Southern Border Initiative implements Alerta AMBER Mexico, a national protocol to coordinate child abductions in the U.S. and Mexico.
2015: The AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program launches a new Tribal Database website (www.tribaldatabase.org) to promote awareness and provide access to important child protection and human trafficking prevention resources for tribal communities.

Amber’s mother continues on bravely, with hope that her daughter’s killer will be found. “I’m not going to give up,” she said. “I still have hope that he will be caught one day.”

The AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP) is proud to honor Mrs. Fran Keith on her retirement and to celebrate her 11 years of dedicated leadership and commitment to AATTAP staff, consultants and partners across the US and internationally. For more than a decade, Keith’s expertise, attention to detail and unsurpassed professionalism were central to building the excellence for which the program has come to be recognized. Fran’s careful and critical decision-making formed a bedrock of operations, while her tireless work with staff, partners and stakeholders fueled the program’s innovations in finding new and better ways to protect children and safely recover those who were missing and abducted.

Keith began her career as an educator in mathematics. One might wonder how a math teacher from Norfolk, Virginia, became such a pivotal member of the AATTAP. Keith moved from her work in mathematics education to serving as a crime and business analyst for the Norfolk Police Department, progressing through her 31-year career there as a division manager in planning and research and a member of the department’s senior executive team. In 2004, Keith joined AATTAP in a consultant role and soon became a program manager, providing leadership and her management expertise across all aspects and operations of the grant.

“I really did not have any personal experience with missing children,” said Keith. “I was simply fortunate enough to meet the people who worked with the program. I learned so much from the AMBER Alert coordinators and other partners and was thrilled to be able to continue in a full-time capacity.”

As the AATTAP worked to achieve the National AMBER Alert Initiative’s goal of every state and territory in the US developing an AMBER Alert program, a central focus was to develop and provide training events across the nation. Keith’s extensive background in operations management was key to executing the massive rollout of local, state and national training, conference events and related technical assistance required to achieve this significant goal.

“Since I started the improvements are too numerous to list,” said Keith. “The expanding network of partners, development of training programs and new techniques for recovery such as social media, Endangered Missing Advisories, plus the outreach to tribal communities and partners in Mexico and other countries.”

With Keith’s help, AATTAP launched and successfully delivered an aggressive schedule of training programs designed to make missing children a “mainstream” issue for law enforcement and the public. Keith provided a legacy of excellence to the program and her colleagues, effective delivery and her innovative approaches to training and technical assistance continue on.

“The work is not over and should be continued for the welfare of America’s children,” added Keith. “Our children’s soft voice should be interpreted as a cry for help when they are endangered, so my hope is enough decision makers will be vocal supporters and maintain the training programs for law enforcement and communities.”

While Keith retired, she will no doubt maintain a keen interest in what can still be accomplished though the AMBER Alert Program. She would like to see more communities develop a Child Abduction Response Team (CART) and is passionate about the program’s involvement of helping victims of human trafficking.

“So many of the victims and survivors of human trafficking were at one time abducted or kidnapped at an early age,” said Keith. “Not every survivor was abducted or reported missing, some were just ‘thrown away.’ Regardless, the vast majority are ‘missing’ and need to be rescued.”

Keith believes training law enforcement, broadcasters and all AMBER Alert partners are still needed to change policies, beliefs and practices, and will continue to represent a critical step for the U.S. to address the epidemic of human trafficking.

“Children are our most vulnerable population and if we do not rescue them and change our approaches, we will only compound the stress on all public service providers,” she said. “Many of the victims and survivors suffer from severe mental health challenges from their abduction and abuse.”

Fran and Phil Keith, former Program Director of AATTAP, recently married and now enjoy traveling and spending time with family and friends. They remain strong advocates for missing and abducted children and welcome opportunities to support and advocate for the work of child protection professionals across the country and around the world.

“I have many fond memories, and most importantly the relationships developed with such wonderful people,” said Keith. “My biggest disappointment is that we still need a program to find missing and abducted children.”

Editor’s note: Despite my title, Fran Keith has been my editor for THE AMBER Advocate since its inception in 2006. She has read every word, corrected every typo, doggedly pushed for its publication and provided invaluable guidance for a publication that now reaches more than 50,000 AMBER Alert partners. “The AMBER Advocate brings real stories from the people who actually handle missing, abducted and endangered children cases and puts a face on the situations they deal with each day,” noted Keith. Personally, I will miss her but I am grateful for Bonnie Davis, who is also a skilled wordsmith, and has assumed Keith’s duties with this important publication.

The Butte County Sheriff’s Office in California issued an AMBER Alert for 3 children on June 14, 2014. Nine minutes later the children were recovered safely and the suspect was in custody. A citizen saw the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) on his cell phone and looked up and saw the suspect’s blue van.

“I can’t believe right when the AMBER Alert came is right when I see the van. That was right within 5 seconds,” Gurinder Jhutty told a reporter. “My gut told me ‘Let’s go back and check it out.’ That’s when I came back and I looked at the license plate and that’s when I started calling 911 and I saw 3 kids in the back. That’s when I started following him.”

Matthew Kline allegedly took his 3-year-old daughter, 18-month-old son and an unrelated 4-year-old girl earlier in the morning. The AMBER Alert cautioned citizens to not approach the suspect because authorities believed he was carrying firearms.

Sergeant Jason Hail has spent 19 years with the Butte County Sheriff’s Office and this was the first AMBER Alert for him and the agency. The sheriff’s office immediately set up a command post and a call center. Officers had an idea where the suspect was heading but did not know at the time the alert would go to all the cell phones in the area.

“I was very surprised and relieved how quickly it was resolved,” said Hail. “I was impressed and it renewed my faith by showing that people really do care and will take appropriate action.”

He also credits the AMBER Alert training he had received in the past for the positive outcome. “I learned that in order to have a smooth operation, it would be beneficial to have all of the involved parties’ information and the circumstances written down, including officer safety information and if there is an arrest warrant active or in the process,” added Hail. “We were flooded with calls in our dispatch center. I learned we need to have a sufficient amount of people on duty to handle calls from the public and assign tasks to individuals to handle the media, make contact with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and other logistics.”

California Highway Patrol Captain Jay Bart has been California’s AMBER Alert Coordinator for the past 2 years. He said it was an easy decision to realize this case was eligible for an AMBER Alert. “The children were in imminent danger because the suspect was violent and mentally unstable,” said Bart. “He was also in possession of stolen firearms and had made threats toward the children and their mother.”

The highway patrol uses a step-by-step process to initiate a chain of notifications to try and recover children during an AMBER Alert, including:

The Emergency Alert System was activated.
Changeable Message Signs were activated to display the suspect vehicle’s information on the national and state highway systems.
The suspect vehicle’s information was entered into the California Highway Patrol License Plate Reader database.
The California Lottery was contacted to display the AMBER Alert information on their display systems.
A message was posted to the California Office of Emergency Services’ Emergency Digital Information System website and it was also sent to all law enforcement agencies in California, including off-duty highway patrol officers.
NCMEC was contacted to request the WEA activation and other secondary notifications.
A flyer with information and pictures was sent to law enforcement, first responders, medical facilities, media outlets and missing persons’ organizations.

“I firmly believe our protocols aided in the success of this AMBER Alert. We are all aware time is a critical factor in cases where missing and abducted children are involved,” said Bart. “I was ecstatic to learn the suspect was apprehended in a very short time frame.”

NCMEC believes this AMBER Alert had the fastest resolution of any alert involving WEA. “This case really shows what a game changer it is to have AMBER Alerts come directly to cell phones in the targeted area,” said Robert Hoever, NCMEC’s Director of Special Programs in the Missing Children Division. “Nearly everyone is carrying a phone and we just need one person to be in the right place at the right time.”

Hail has this advice for those who have yet to issue an AMBER Alert: “I believe the most important part is to have enough staff in place to handle calls from the public,” he said. “Have individuals in place and assign those individuals responsibilities as you would with any other critical incident.”

Preparation, protocols and new technology made this AMBER Alert a case study on what works to recover abducted children.

“Factoring in the time it takes to gather information, approve the alert and activate the emergency alert system, the suspect was arrested and the victims were safely recovered in less than one hour from the activation,” concluded Bart.

When 9-year-old Amber Hagerman went missing in Arlington, Texas, on January 13, 1996, the entire community joined together to bring her home. Although her story ended in tragedy, it inspired Diana Simone to contact a local radio station about broadcasting alerts on radio and TV when a child is abducted. On January 27, 1996, Simone put her thoughts into writing and that letter became the inspiration for the AMBER Alert.

As we near the 20th anniversary of that letter, the AMBER Alert program has spread around the world. In the U.S., nearly 800 children have been safely recovered after an AMBER Alert was issued. Instead of taking credit for the program, Simone asked that the alert be named after Amber Hagerman.

“We just wanted to do something for the night, so we went out to find the car.” — Charlène Plant and Mélizanne Bergeron

A woman wearing a nurse's uniform walked into a hospital in Trois-Rivières, Quebec on May 26, 2014, and left with a baby who was born 16 hours earlier. The woman was not the mother of little Victoria McMahon and she drove away with the newborn in a red car with a sign that said "Baby on Board."

Quebec AMBER Alert Coordinator Jean Charles Benoit — Quebec AMBER Alert Coordinator Jean-Charles Benoit

The hospital's security guards found a picture of the woman and staff members and patients provided details to municipal police about the suspect and her vehicle. Quebec AMBER Alert Coordinator Jean-Charles Benoit was contacted and he quickly determined the situation met the criteria for an AMBER Alert.

Quebec Provincial Police Sergeant Martine Asselin was at home when she got the call that an AMBER Alert was about to be issued. Asselin is the public information officer for her agency and she knew she needed to be ready to answer questions for the media. "The biggest challenge is to get the alert out as quickly as possible," said Asselin. "We have to be fast but the information has to be good."

This was the 10th AMBER Alert issued by the Quebec Provincial Police and every child from previous alerts had been recovered safely. Flyers with information about the latest alert went out to law enforcement, media, social media, transportation and other AMBER Alert partners.

"You have to be ready before it happens," said Asselin. "You have to have a protocol so everyone knows what to do."

They were trained and ready but everyone knew what was at stake. "Everyone is touched by this type of call," said Asselin. "It is their job but no one is immune to the emotions of a child needing help."

Charlène Plant and three friends saw the alert on Facebook and immediately joined the search. They recognized the suspect as a former neighbor and drove to her apartment and saw her car parked outside. "We just wanted to do something for the night, so we went out to find the car," Plant told a reporter.

They called the police and 50 minutes after the alert went out the baby was recovered safely and the suspect was in custody.

Not surprisingly, Victoria's mother, Mélissa McMahon, thanked everyone on Facebook. "The photo saved our daughter! In less than an hour, the photo was everywhere. You were more than thousands of people who shared the photo of this woman on social media. Know that it was this that saved her, our little Victoria. Every click, every share made the difference."

"The child was recovered safely and returned to her waiting parents within less than three hours," noted Canada AMBER Alert Coordinator Nancy Martin. "It was a proud moment for all involved."

Everyone involved in the Quebec AMBER Alert Program is also a big believer about the impact of social media. "Facebook was the reason this AMBER Alert was a success," said Asselin. "The fact that it went out on social media demonstrates that social media can really help in an AMBER Alert."

The use of social media and the fact it was the first time in recent memory that a child had been abducted from a hospital in Canada drew international attention to the case and the AMBER Alert system. "It was like a movie scenario," said Asselin. "We were very proud of the work by the police and we worked together as a team to use new tools to find a child."

Despite the success, Asselin said her agency will still look for new ways to help find abducted children. "We always can improve," she said. "We need to be sure we are on track and we need to make sure everyone is prepared."

Phil Keith at the 2009 National AMBER Alert Symposium — Phil Keith at the 2009 AMBER Alert Symposium.

Phil Keith had just retired in 2004 as the police chief of Knoxville, Tennessee, when he was given a monumental task: make sure every state, territory and the District of Columbia have a consistent and effective AMBER Alert program within two years. Many states and communities had a child abduction alert system but the programs varied in size, criteria, and capability.

"One of the driving tenants of the development of the AMBER Alert system was to not decide what level of participation there would be but to make the network seamless and let the local, Tribal, regional, and state governments make the most informed decision best meeting their needs," said Keith. "This strategy is still in place today."

Keith put together a small team of professionals who understood teamwork, a strong work ethic and a "relentless sense of urgency to help recover missing children." The team listened to law enforcement officers who knew what did and did not work. They reached their goal in 18 months and wanted to do more.

"It was very clear the U.S. Department of Justice AMBER Alert Initiative was more than highway signs and messaging," said Keith. "The program had to create a voluntary seamless network of AMBER Alert Plans designed to rescue and recover missing, endangered and abducted children."

The team used best practices on investigations, searches, policies, and technologies to help good AMBER Alert programs become better. Team members invited abduction victims and their families to learn about the strengths and shortfalls they witnessed firsthand. They discovered and developed new ways to recover children like the Child Abduction Response Team, Endangered Missing Advisory, AMBER Alert in Indian Country Initiative and the Southern Border Initiative and using social media, including sending AMBER Alerts through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's secondary distribution program.

"This is not to say there were not 'bumps in the road,' bruised feelings or some unintentional temporary derailments, but the bottom line was the focus on protecting children," said Keith. "We pushed the envelope at times to gain acceptance, secure sincere team efforts at all levels of government and were very careful to be inclusive rather than exclusive."

Funding for training has always been difficult to obtain on a federal, state, and local level. Keith had to find ways to teach more people with less money. Instead of bringing hundreds of people to be trained by a few experts, he began sending the experts to train hundreds of AMBER Alert partners where they worked. More than 18,700 people have also been trained through eLearning courses.

Now nearly a decade later, Keith has retired from the AMBER Alert Program. Jim Walters, who has been involved with the AMBER Alert Program since its beginnings, has assumed the position as Director of the AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program. He credits the team for bringing the AMBER Alert Program to its current level and he believes teamwork will be essential to keep the momentum going.

"We have already seen 'bad guys' let children go once they hear AMBER Alerts have been issued, so we are headed in the right direction," concluded Keith. "However, we have to be ever vigilant in our efforts as there are some really evil people in the world who bring great risk and harm to our children."

Keith's Parting Thoughts on:

Child Abduction Response Team (CART)
These teams are built from the bottom up in most communities and represent the true intent of state, local, and Tribal communities to be prepared to respond to episodes of missing, endangered, or abducted children. This model program should remain the flagship initiative of the U.S. Department of Justice and be expanded into as many communities as possible.

Endangered Missing Advisory
The common recurring question about AMBER Alerts was “what to do if my child does not meet the criteria.” The Endangered Missing Advisory addresses the gap for persons over the age of 17, special needs persons, and addresses a population neglected by most everyone, the “endangered missing and runaways.” Today over 43 states and a number of local communities have adopted a form of the Endangered Missing Advisory Program.

AMBER Alert in Indian Country
This initiative was designed to meet the culturally sensitive needs of life in Tribal communities and the unique challenges Tribal members face every day. We learned early on not to layer another program on the Tribes, but rather utilize existing programs and efforts to compliment the work achieved and give AMBER Alert a true meaning of creating greater capacity and skills to respond to children in crisis among Tribal communities.

The Southern Border Initiative
Our partners on both sides of the border demonstrated their dedication and resolve to make a difference in missing children and after only 18 months we had “Alerta AMBER” throughout Mexico. Many of the officials supported the Alerta AMBER, even though there is a potential grave consequence by organized criminal enterprises not interested in the welfare of children and were most likely involved in the trafficking of children for commercial sexual exploitation.

AMBER Alerts in Social Media
Technology has been a great tool to advance the AMBER Alert messaging. In the coming years use of the social media will become a more localized effort as it should be, as the local communities know best what is needed and the urgency in getting “other eyes” looking for missing children.

More than 160 participants from 28 Mexican states attended the second national Alerta AMBER (AMBER Alert) Forum on May 26-27, 2014. The two-day training was held in Mexico City and included case studies and best practices for using social media and other means to communicate quickly when a child is abducted.

Mexico's Attorney General's Office reported that 105 children have been recovered through the country's new child abduction alert system. Mexico issued 187 alerts nationwide between May 2012 and November 30, 2013.

The meeting in May was also used to launch Mexico's official AMBER Alert website: www.alertaamber.gob.mx. The website will provide case management for distributing alert information. A mobile app was also developed to notify the public about an AMBER Alert.

Brett Anderson speaking at a press conference related to his daughter, Hannah — Hannah Anderson's father, Brett Anderson, addresses the media.

The search for Hannah Anderson received international attention after AMBER Alerts were issued in five states to find her. On August 4, grandparents called police to report their 16-year-old granddaughter and her 8-year-old brother Ethan were missing from their home in National City, California.

The San Diego Sheriff's Office asked the California Highway Patrol to issue a regional AMBER Alert on August 5 and later requested a statewide alert. Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Idaho also issued AMBER Alerts as the search intensified for Anderson and the suspect, 40-year-old James Lee DiMaggio.

On August 9, horseback riders in the backcountry near Cascade, Idaho recognized a man and a girl that matched the description of the victim and suspect in the AMBER Alert. The next day FBI agents shot and killed DiMaggio after he shot at them. Anderson was found with no visible injuries and taken to a hospital.

Biggest Activation Ever

An AMBER Alert being issued in five states is unprecedented and the search for the suspect and victim expanded into other states as well as Canada and Mexico. This was also the largest activation ever of the new Wireless Emergency Alert system or WEA.

“I think this case is a great example of how the AMBER Alert system should be used,” said Bob Hoever, Director of Special Programs Missing Children Division for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. “The expansion of the AMBER Alert was driven by the investigation.”

Hoever said the Anderson case did a lot to increase national awareness of WEA because so many people received the alert for the first time on their cell phones. He said some of the media coverage focused on people who were upset that the alert was issued late at night.

“I explained I am sorry that people were inconvenienced that late in the evening,” said Hoever. “But I was confident that when they discovered the minor inconvenience helped rescue a child, they would have a different point of view.”

While the alert was activated the Anderson case was the most searched item on Google, receiving more than 500,000 searches.

California

Initially the San Diego Sheriff's Office did not have enough information to issue an AMBER Alert because they did not have any evidence the children were abducted. Investigators soon discovered the badly burned body of the victim's mother, Christina Anderson, and a child's body that was burned beyond recognition in DiMaggio's home.

Ninety minutes after getting the initial call, the San Diego Sheriff's Office determined the criteria had been met for an AMBER Alert. The alert went out at 5:27 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time or PST) in San Diego and Imperial Counties. The AMBER Alert was disseminated to the entire state at 9:30 p.m. (PST).

California Highway Patrol Captain Greg Ferrero is also the state AMBER Alert Coordinator. He said all the components of the statewide AMBER Alert worked as designed.

“I think the human element was the most essential component of the success of the Anderson AMBER Alert,” said Ferrero.

Looking back, Ferrero said a current list of state AMBER Alert coordinators, point-of-contact information and criteria for each state would have made it easier to get the alerts out in the other states. The lack of uniformity between state plans also led to some delays and miscommunication but Ferrero said all the coordinators worked together well.

“The cooperation among the states and out-of-country coordinators was astounding,” added Ferrero. “The sense of urgency to recover the victim was a common goal of all coordinators.”

Nevada

The Nevada AMBER Alert Program got involved early on because the state's Emergency Alert System sends AMBER Alerts to Eastern California. On November 7, a caller from Utah called the Nevada AMBER Alert Coordinator about a possible sighting of the suspect and victim in Las Vegas. The caller was connected to the San Diego Sheriff's Office to see if an AMBER Alert was also needed in Nevada.

“We had to receive confirmation from the activating agency in California that they had a valid reason to believe there was a high probability that the suspect would most likely travel through Nevada,” said Nevada Statewide Emergency Alert/AMBER Alert Committee Chair Stephanie Parker.

Nevada's statewide AMBER Alert went out at 4:20 p.m. (PST) on August 7. The media coverage intensified after the alert was issued in the state because now it was a local story.

Parker said the coordination and timely responses between the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, California and eventually other states worked well throughout the activation.

The Nevada AMBER Alert Committee plans to review the alert. In addition, the state has recently acquired Common Alerting Protocol technology that will simplify the process for issuing AMBER Alerts when an agency requests a statewide alert. The current Legacy EAS system requires agencies to call the three main EAS stations in Elko, Las Vegas and Reno for a statewide AMBER Alert.

The suspect's vehicle is shown being towed.

Oregon

Oregon activated the AMBER Alert at 4:17 p.m. (PST) on August 7 after authorities received a tip that the suspect's vehicle was seen near Alturas, California and heading north on Highway 395 towards Oregon. Another person reported seeing the vehicle in the Lakeview area, which is north of the Oregon/California border.

“One of our criminal detectives contacted the woman in Alturas to get additional information and he felt what we had was enough to activate our AMBER Alert for the state of Oregon,” said Oregon AMBER Alert Coordinator Richard Culley.

Because of the location, Culley said it would have been easy for the suspect to continue into Oregon or head back into Nevada.

Some doubts were later cast about the tips concerning sightings in Oregon, but law enforcement officials decided to keep the alert active just in case. “We are not turning our back to this, and we are doing what we can to locate that suspect vehicle and the missing children,” said Oregon State Police Lt. Gregg Hastings to a reporter.

Washington

The state of Washington also issued an AMBER Alert at 4:40 p.m. (PST) on August 7. Washington State AMBER Alert Coordinator Carri Gordon said the Washington State Police reached out to the San Diego Sheriff's Office to see if the agency could help in the search. She said the decision to activate the alert was made after receiving information the suspect may be heading to Washington.

“In my opinion we should have reached out to the San Diego Sheriff's Office earlier,” said Gordon. “As involved as they were in their investigation, extending the alert beyond California was probably a low priority.”

Washington used the Law Enforcement Alert Portal to distribute the AMBER Alert. Overall, Gordon thinks the system worked well.

“There was excellent coordination between our state and the command center in San Diego,” said Gordon. “We were included in conference calls regarding the investigation, and they kept us up to date on events as they occurred.”

Idaho

Idaho turned out to be the key state for the AMBER Alert. But the request for Idaho to issue an alert came from the Washington State Police. Idaho AMBER Alert Coordinator Dawn Peck said they had to consider whether the case met their state criteria and whether there was a real possibility the suspect and victim could be in Idaho.

“The coordination between the states is key,” said Peck. “When another state calls and asks for assistance, you need to do all you can to accommodate the request. The investigating agencies do not ask unless they feel the alert in your state will help in the recovery of the child. In Idaho, we always err on the side of the child.”

The AMBER Alert went out in Idaho at 5:52 p.m. (PST) on August 7. The alert notified broadcasters, law enforcement and the public through the AMBER Alert Portal but it did not go out initially on the EAS system or on the highway signs. Two days later the California Highway Patrol called about a credible sighting in Idaho and the alert went out again using all of the state's notification methods, including EAS and the highway signs.

Relief All Around

Peck said the conference calls between all the coordinators helped to keep them informed and to make sure the message going out to the public was consistent. “We were very happy that this team effort led to Hannah Anderson's safe recovery,” said Peck.

Everyone involved with the multistate AMBER Alert summed up what was accomplished with the alert with one word: relief.

“Relief primarily that she was alive and safe,” said Carri Gordon from Washington. “The information about her being located as a result of the AMBER Alert was very reaffirming that the system works as intended.”

“It was a relief she was found alive, and it was also an affirmation that the system worked again,” added Nevada's Stephanie Parker. “Law enforcement, broadcasters, wireless alerts, social media and the public saved a life.”

“We are glad everything worked out and that Hannah was recovered safely,” added Oregon's Richard Culley.

Greg Ferrero of California offered this closing thought: “Due to the violent events surrounding the abduction, I think we all knew that the stakes were very high in this case. All involved employees had a sense of accomplishment and felt responsible for Hannah's safe recovery.”

Minutes before 8 a.m. on September 5, 2013, a child was snatched from a park playground in Riverton, Utah, in front of dozens of people. The people were expecting to play a role in the mock activation for the Utah Child Abduction Response Team (CART) but they had no idea they would be witnesses to a carefully planned abduction.

“One witness looked over and refused to look back,” said Utah CART Coordinator Jessica Farnsworth. “They said, ‘We really didn't see anything.’ People do not go around expecting to witness an abduction.”

For about six months Farnsworth and Co-Coordinator Patty Reed worked to come up with an exercise with as many realistic details as possible that would truly test the team's ability to respond to the challenges that may be encountered during an actual abduction.

They recruited more than 100 neighbors and friends to act out the roles of victim, suspect and witnesses. Some of the participants called in tips and others allowed investigators to come in and search their homes.

“If you do not use your skills then you lose them,” said Farnsworth. “CART members are highly skilled, and we need to make sure they can respond quickly if this happens in real life.”

The Utah CART has about 150 members from 26 local, state and federal agencies with expertise in computers, forensics, search and rescue, crime intelligence analysis and other areas.

The last mock activation was held three years ago to test whether the Utah CART would receive national certification from the U.S. Department of Justice. The Utah CART was started six years ago and is now one of 19 teams in the country with national certification.

The timeline shows that this exercise moved very fast: at 8:26 a.m. CART members respond to the CART activation, with the dispatcher's original report indicating a 9- to 11-year-old girl was grabbed by the wrist and started screaming for help. At 8:45 a.m. a mother calls in and reports her 12-year-old daughter Mckenna was missing. At 9:26 a.m. CART members arrive at the command post near Riverton Chase Park. At 10:04 a.m. the decision is made to issue an AMBER Alert. At 10:13 a.m., instead of activating the official state AMBER Alert system, Twitter is used and tweets start going out with details about the mock victim and suspect, including a description of McKenna Eldredge, 12, and the suspect's vehicle. At 9:53 a.m. a tweet sends out a photo of the abducted child.

The team began canvassing the area and checking for sex offenders when tips came in that a man in his 20's was seen dragging a girl down the canal road. At 11:20 a.m. investigators found the victim's bracelet inside a vehicle near the road and soon found her hoodie on the canal road.

The “victim” was found at 11:51 a.m. and a tweet went out two minutes later announcing the abduction “victim” was located safe at Jordan Parkway while the suspect was still at large. The “suspect,” played by Daniel Stewart, was arrested at 12:15 p.m.

Despite the massive numbers of CART members and the quick recovery, those in the exercise learned they could have done better with more people. “New leads came in but there were not enough investigators to handle them,” said Utah CART Search Coordinator Leo Lucey. “We would have found her 45 minutes earlier with enough resources.”

A debriefing was held a few hours after the exercise to find out what went right, what went wrong and what is needed to improve. Teams are encouraged to hold a debriefing and prepare an “After-Action Report” anytime a CART is activated, even for an exercise.

Here are some examples of the lessons learned: witnesses mistakenly thought the suspect had a hat and was wearing jeans instead of khakis, the location of the printing plotter caused delays for making maps, the victim's family needed hourly updates, and the CART needed more investigators, searchers, radios, and flyers.

The media was invited to take part in the exercise, and reporters and camera crews gave the exercise more authenticity. Members of CARTs in Iowa, Arizona, and Southern and Northern Utah also came to observe.

“You did a good job of getting back and forth with your information,” said Iowa Department of Public Safety (DPS) Special Agent Don Schnitker. “It was important to see when leads come in whether or not it has already been checked.”

“It was very impressive,” said Iowa DPS Special Agent Michael Motsinger. “We have been talking about how far you have come. This will be huge to take back and use as a springboard to go forward.”

“It was really impressive and it is good to know you are not far away if we need help,” said St. George, Utah, Police Captain Kyle Whitehead.

One of the biggest surprises: a real stolen vehicle was discovered by the license plate reader during the exercise.

Despite some missed opportunities, everyone was impressed by what was accomplished in such a short amount of time. “I was blown away that you had found the child so soon,” said Farnsworth.

“You guys put the safety in public safety,” concluded Ken Wallentine, former Chief of Law Enforcement for the Utah Attorney General's Office. “I appreciate your service.”

Emergency response officials met in Grand Island, Nebraska, to discuss the impact “next-generation 911” will have on the AMBER Alert program and other public safety issues. The October 10 meeting included discussions about how the new 911 will need to be able to receive text messages, photos, video and VOIP or Voice over Internet Protocol.

Officials said dispatchers would need additional training to handle the new applications. They added that the advanced 911 would help provide a description of a child and distribute a photo to the public and to electronic highway signs during an AMBER Alert.

Iowa has changed the criteria to make it easier to issue an AMBER Alert when all the information is not available. Authorities now need to have only one of the following descriptions: the abducted child, the suspect or the suspect's vehicle. Before the change the state required all three descriptions before an alert could be issued. The change was made after a review was held of two high-profile kidnapping and murder investigations. The review board also recommended more AMBER Alert training in the state.

Les Brock and his friend Willie Schwinn were sitting down for breakfast at a restaurant in Huron, Ohio, when they looked out the window and saw the car wanted in an AMBER Alert. The alert was issued July 1 and showed up on Brock's cellphone a few hours earlier at 5:30 a.m. The two construction workers decided to use an acronym to remember the suspect's license plate.

Earlier that morning the Cleveland, Ohio, Police Department received a call that a non-custodial father had taken his 8-year-old son from a family member. The suspect, Kevin Criss, had a protective order to stay away from his son.

“It met all the AMBER Alert criteria,” said Ohio State Patrol Captain and Ohio AMBER Alert Coordinator Rob Jackson. “Everything about the alert worked correctly.”

The alert prompted Brock and Schwinn to start following the suspect and call 911. The suspect was apprehended by law enforcement officers at 9:30 a.m. The child was safely returned to his mother.

“The child is abducted and I'm gonna do whatever I can,” Brock told a reporter. “Neither one of us have kids; so we were following that guy to the end.”

Jackson is grateful these two men went to such extraordinary measures to respond to the alert. “It was fantastic,” he said. “The alert did everything it was designed to do.”

This AMBER Alert was significant because Ohio issued the alert during early morning hours with the new Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system. The state had just recently approved using WEA 24 hours a day, whenever an alert was issued.

In April, the Ohio AMBER Alert Committee met with representatives of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and decided to use WEA for AMBER Alerts during all hours. Despite recommendations to not use WEA during early hours, committee members said children are abducted 24 hours a day so the alerts should go out 24 hours a day.

Jackson said this alert is a good example and proof that the committee made the right decision for Ohio and efforts to educate the public about the alerts paid off. “WEA reaches people who are not reached any other way,” he said. “WEA was the key to success in this alert because it allows the maximum number of people who are available to find the suspect.”

A proposed auction of the broadcast spectrum may impact the reach of AMBER Alerts in several Western states. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is auctioning part of the spectrum used by television stations and some broadcasters fear the change will hurt rural residents from getting AMBER Alerts.

“We are concerned this will hurt thousands of people who receive free over-the-air TV,” said Utah Broadcasters Association President Michele Zabriskie. “We want to make sure they are still able to receive emergency messages, including AMBER Alerts, and help bring abducted kids back home.”

On February 22, 2012, the FCC received authorization from Congress to auction spectrum made available by television stations voluntarily for wireless or broadband use. The TV stations will get a share of the proceeds from the auction. Large companies, such as AT&T and Verizon, will likely pay sizable amounts of money to buy the spectrum.

“It will be a groundbreaking event for the broadcast television, mobile wireless and technology sectors of our economy,” said the FCC in a statement. “The auction presents a significant financial opportunity for many broadcasters, and we expect it to enhance the ability of broadcasters who remain on the air to continue providing the public with diverse, local, free over-the-air television service.”

Photo of Michele Zabriskie — Michele Zabriskie

Western states such as Utah, New Mexico, and Montana have developed significant translator systems to carry over-the-air television signals to rural, often mountainous, portions of their states where it is not feasible to provide cable service.

Utah has 756 such translators that cover 25 of the state's 29 counties. Approximately 250,000 Utah homes, about 20% of the population, receive TV free over-the-air.

“The FCC is looking at moving all over-the-air television broadcasting to Channel 31 or below,” said Zabriskie. “If that happens, the translator system in Utah will be out of business as it now operates, because all translators are on channels higher than 31.”

Once the auction is completed, a “repacking” process will likely be used to reposition some television stations to different spectrum locations. However, it is unclear whether the translators will still function.

Zabriskie and other broadcasters in the Western States are urging FCC and Congress to make sure the translators still function after the auction and repacking is completed.

Law enforcement officers in West Virginia may no longer have to “confirm” a child has been abducted to issue an AMBER Alert. The state senate approved a bill in April that would allow the alert to be issued for any missing child. Legislators also approved the “Kelsey Smith Act” that lets police compel a wireless provider to issue a “ping” on the phone of anyone considered to be in danger. Police in Kansas were denied access to Kelsey Smith's cellphone number for 4 days because she had not dialed 911. Her body was found 45 minutes after a ping finally went out.

A suspect accused of assaulting his wife and snatching their 2-year-old son was no match for a trio of truckers and highway patrol troopers who responded to an AMBER Alert in Tennessee. On January 9, 2013, 23-year-old Austin Whitehead allegedly got into a violent fight with his wife and then took their son with him in his Pontiac Grand Am.

The Houston County Sheriff's Office wanted to issue an AMBER Alert because of the assault and because Whitehead had allegedly threatened suicide. Tennessee AMBER Alert Coordinator Mike Cox said there was no question the alert met the state's criteria.

“We thought he was a danger to the child because of his possible mental state and the injuries to his wife,” said Cox.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) oversees the statewide AMBER Alert program. Cox was assigned to be the state AMBER Alert coordinator in September 2012, and this was the third time he helped initiate an alert. “You can practice all day long, but you know it is different when it is real,” he said. “Every time I lie down at night I think, ‘I hope I made the right decision and did the right thing.’”

After all the information was gathered the alert went out at 1:20 p.m. to law enforcement, media, transportation, state lottery, and the National Weather Service. The alert can go out statewide or to three individual regions. Because authorities believed Whitehead was traveling to Covington, Georgia, Cox decided to send the alert to only the middle and eastern regions.

Moments after truck driver Jim Lowe saw the AMBER Alert on the electronic highway signs, he spotted the Pontiac Grand Am about 170 miles from the reported abduction. He used his radio to notify the trucks ahead of him and three truckers started to box the suspect in and slow him down.

“It is pretty wild,” noted Cox. “In almost 22 years of law enforcement I have never seen anything like it.”

Tennessee Highway Patrol dispatchers notified troopers, and they arrested Whitehead and safely recovered the young boy from the car. The AMBER Alert was cancelled less than two hours after it was issued.

“I am just glad that little kid is safe at home tonight in his own bed,” Lowe told a reporter. “I guess that is just where God meant for me to be.”

Tennessee has had five AMBER Alerts since Cox became the coordinator, and he said he is grateful for everyone who got the program up and running before he started. “I have a child of my own and it makes me feel good,” he said. “It is about as fulfilling as anything we can do in law enforcement. Nothing is more important than children.”

Kristina Bomba in front of a U.S. flag — Kristina Bomba

Kristina Bomba became Colorado's AMBER Alert Coordinator when very few states had an AMBER Alert program. Bomba had been working as an intelligence analyst for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for four years when she was asked to help launch the nation’s eighth statewide child abduction alert on April 1, 2002.

“It was a learning experience,” Bomba said. “There were only a few states to ask, ‘how do you do this?’ and find out what was working.”

Colorado was the first state where the legislature passed a law to create an AMBER Alert system. Lawmakers put the plan in place, but Bomba had to reach out to other partners to make it work. “We had to clarify everyone's role,” she said.

Broadcasters wanted a single point of contact instead of having more than 200 law enforcement agencies issuing an alert. They also wanted to make sure that measures were in place to ensure each alert was legitimate.

It started with a three-step process: the law enforcement agency would contact CBI; CBI would call the radio station in charge of the state's Emergency Alert System; and CBI would send emails and faxes to law enforcement and broadcasters.

“It was a big learning curve for law enforcement,” said Bomba. “Initially they were calling us on everything. We had to teach them the criteria and whether the alert could be used.”

For example, Colorado issued 12 AMBER Alerts in 2003 but lately only three or four alerts are activated each year. “I think we have done better because of education, and everyone now understands the criteria better,” added Bomba. “The public has also been receptive to the AMBER Alert because we have been cautious not to overuse it.”

Colorado now has a much more robust system to distribute AMBER Alerts. The alerts go out to electronic highway signs, lottery terminals, local busses, trains and underground utility companies. The public can register to receive the alerts by email, and a new website will automatically post the alerts online and send the messages to the public through an RSS feed.

Beyond changes in technology, Bomba has also noticed more states using the same criteria for the AMBER Alert. “Everybody was all over the board. Now we are similar,” she said. Colorado legislators had to change the state's AMBER Alert law so Colorado could issue alerts originating out of other states.

Even though she has been around longer than most people in the AMBER Alert Program, Bomba is still eager to learn from others and share with others. “Networking is probably the most important thing you can do,” she said.

Colorado's first AMBER Alert coordinator grew up wanting to be in law enforcement, even visited with a private investigator specializing in missing person cases when she was in high school. Now she is the mother of a 6-year-old son and nearly 2-year-old daughter and finds enormous satisfaction bringing abducted children home. “I am more sensitive since I had children,” she said. “I have more of a connection with the cases.”

Editor’s Note: Shortly after Bomba was interviewed for this story she was transferred to an analyst position at the Colorado State Police. CBI Assistant Director of Investigations Steve Johnson wrote this when he announced the change: “I cannot begin to describe the impact Kristina has had for children and victims of crime in her 15 and 1/2 years with CBI. Kristina has raised the bar for us, and we are a better organization for her efforts and dedication and will look for many of her traits and qualities in her replacement.”

Family survivors roundtable meeting. — The Family Roundtable meeting brought together 50 people intent on helping others going through missing child incidents.

Some parents found their son or daughter safe. Some learned their child was murdered. But some still do not know what happened to their little boy or girl. The 50 people gathered May 6-7, 2013, in Jacksonville, Florida, for the Family Roundtable include parents, siblings, and survivors of child abductions.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has brought the Family Roundtable together eight times as part of the National AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program. Each time family members and survivors of child abductions provide insight on what law enforcement officers, media representatives, prosecutors and other AMBER Alert partners can do better when a child is taken.

Cameron Moulton was only 2 years old when his 10-year-old brother Christopher was kidnapped and brutally stabbed to death in 1995. Cameron said it took him years before he could finally talk about his feelings about losing his brother.

“I grew up afterwards with this weight on my shoulders,” he said. “The feeling you have on a day-to-day basis and not being able to talk about having a brother or sister…or withdrawing from people so you do not have to tell them.”

Jessica Clifton's 8-year-old sister Madelyn Rae was murdered by a 14-year-old neighbor in 2006. She said it was very difficult to be isolated from her parents during such a traumatic time. “A detective called me at 2 a.m. and told me I could not go back to my parent's home,” she said. “I understand it now, but I did not understand it then. I just wanted to help, and I felt helpless during the entire investigation.”

Many of the siblings of child abduction victims said they felt forgotten. They said they want to be “true survivors” and not just victims. Participants helped make a list of things a family should know when a child is abducted, including: you are not alone, you are not crazy, you are not at fault, you will be a suspect, you do not have to know what to do, and you need to take care of your basic needs of sleep, eating and drinking.

During a breakout session with siblings and survivors, participants offered some advice to family members and those who come into contact with families during a child abduction: law enforcement should tell the family first about new leads and keep the press out of the recovery site; siblings should be assertive, keep their identity and not be afraid to get counseling; parents should give their children age appropriate tasks to help in the case; the media should have clear boundaries; and social media is a place where rumors and hurtful comments can spread and not be retracted.

Photo of Dr. Veronique Valliere, a clinical psychologist — Clinical psychologist Dr. Veronique Valliere

Clinical psychologist Dr. Veronique Valliere shared with the group some of her findings from working with violent and non-violent sex offenders for more than 20 years. She said pedophilia is not curable, only containable. She added that 90% of the pedophile population will sexually assault anyone while the remaining 10% only assault children.

Dr. Valliere said strict housing ordinances for sex offenders actually causes sexual assault rates to increase. However, she said sex offenders should be closely watched because they prey on fear, ignorance and not being held accountable.

The 2-day roundtable also included a case study on lessons learned from the Jaycee Dugard case. Dugard was kidnapped in 1991 and held hostage by a convicted sex offender for more than 18 years. Participants also heard a presentation on how technology is used to exploit children and ways parents can prevent exploitation.

Some of the parents had children who were abducted and taken to another country. They said it was difficult to get law enforcement in other countries to respond because it was often considered a custody dispute and it was very difficult to communicate. They also said the media and the public showed very little interest in their plight.

“It is clear that many of the issues facing families involved in domestic U.S. abductions were different than those encountered on the international side,” concluded Phil Keith, Program Director for the AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program. “It seemed that law enforcement was poorly informed on what could be done for the victim's family. Because of the danger of serious bodily injury or death, the police in the U.S. are more focused and consequently so is the media.”

Two people seated at a table: Jessica Davenport, left, and Peter Warren — Jessica Davenport, left, has been the Florida AMBER Alert Coordinator for the past two years, and Peter Warren became the state's new AMBER Alert Coordinator in March 2013. He is also looking to use new technology to streamline the AMBER Alert process.

Jessica Davenport always wanted a job where she could make a real difference. Her goal was realized when she was asked to be the Florida AMBER Alert coordinator two years ago.

She already had worked for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for three years, and she jumped at the chance to develop policies for the AMBER Alert program.

“I was really interested in missing child issues and what happens to a child after he or she is abducted,” said Davenport. “We need to identify those needs and have policies in place to help protect children.”

During the past two years, she has worked on ways to streamline the process to issue an AMBER Alert. Florida sends the alerts to law enforcement, media, Emergency Alert System, highway signs, 511 Traffic Information Line, Highway Advisory Radio, social media, lottery machines, and through e-mails to people who register to receive them.

“We are always looking for new ways to put out AMBER Alerts,” said Davenport. “We also found a way to send alerts when we are at home so we can get the AMBER Alert out faster.”

Florida issued seven AMBER Alerts during her first year on the job in 2011. The state issued nine alerts last year, and so far, the state has issued only one in 2013.

Davenport said one memorable alert involved a suspect who met a woman on Facebook and then abducted her baby. “We didn't know the suspect's name, so we contacted Facebook and got enough information to identify the woman and find the child,” said Davenport. “Our program is very successful. We have recovered a lot of children from AMBER Alerts.”

She offers this advice to new AMBER Alert coordinators: “I think it is important to understand how your AMBER Alert process works, but do not be afraid to make changes and try new ways to make the process more effective.”

Davenport is the oldest of six children in her family and said this has helped her have empathy for parents of abducted children. “I know the feeling of how terrifying it would be to lose a child,” she said. “I keep this in mind all the time.”

When she is not working, Davenport is actively involved in politics and community issues. However, she says the AMBER Alert program has given her a chance to see real results from her efforts. “It is nice to have an impact,” she said. “I think a lot of us who work for criminal justice are looking to make a difference. The AMBER Alert is one way you can really see you are making an impact.”

Davenport has been the Florida AMBER Alert Coordinator for the past two years, and Peter Warren became the state's new AMBER Alert Coordinator in March 2013. He is also looking to use new technology to streamline the AMBER Alert process.

Photo of Derek Welsh in front of a U.S. flag — Kansas AMBER Alert Coordinator Derek Welsh

The Leavenworth, Kansas, Police Department did not have much time for second guessing after receiving reports that an ex-boyfriend, who witnesses said had made threatening statements earlier in the day, grabbed a 16-year-old girl and forced her into a car.

According to witnesses, the 17-year-old suspect took off with the girl after fighting with her current boyfriend. They also said the suspect had been spotted with a handgun and threatening people earlier in the day.

On July 5, 2012, the police department filled out the AMBER Alert request form on the Kansas Criminal Justice Information System Portal and contacted the Kansas Bureau of Investigation for approval.

“Once we determine the AMBER Alert criteria have been met, the law enforcement coordinator starts the process to issue the alert,” said Kansas AMBER Alert Coordinator Derek Welsh. The alert was issued at 2:55 p.m.

The Kansas Bureau of Investigation contacted the state's Emergency Alert System provider, a Topeka radio station, so the alert could be recorded and forwarded to all broadcasters. TV and radio stations aired the alert every 15 minutes the first hour, every 30 minutes the second hour, and once every hour until the next scheduled newscast.

The AMBER Alert was posted on highway signs, business signs, and digital billboards. The alert was sent out via e-mail, text message, and posted on the Kansas AMBER Alert website, which is updated every 15 minutes, and showed up as a banner on other state government websites. “As soon as we were called, our wheels were put into motion, and things happened smoothly,” said Welsh.

Around 8:00 p.m., a citizen in Brown County, Kansas, spotted the 1996 Toyota Camry matching the description of the car shown on the AMBER Alert. Brown County authorities pulled the car over and discovered the victim was not very happy she had been found. “She was mad an AMBER Alert was issued and said, ‘I am not missing,’” said Welsh.

AMBER Alert coordinators from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation met with Leavenworth police detectives for an after-action review of the alert. Everyone involved agreed that the decision to issue the alert was correct. “Based on the information we had at the time, we made the right decision,” said Welsh. “She was located because the AMBER Alert was sent out to the public.”

Welsh said the alert also provided an opportunity to see how the overall AMBER Alert program was working, especially since the state had not issued an alert in nearly two years. He learned the tip line worked well even though the usual phone bank area was under construction. However, he is now looking at ways to speed up the alerts going out through secondary distribution.

“The AMBER Alert worked, but there is always room for improvement,” said Welsh. “We always find things we can do better.”

Google has partnered with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to notify people of abducted children in their area. People using Google or Google Maps will receive AMBER Alerts if they are in the area where a child has been abducted.

“Google takes the issue of child safety very seriously,” said Susan Molinari, Google Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs.

Google is already looking at ways to improve the system so people will be notified if they are within a mile of the incident. Google will expand the radius in time when new information comes in. The search engine also hopes to bring the alerts to Google users in Europe.

Hugh Emerson Munn, who passed away October 19, 2012, in Columbia, South Carolina, is remembered for his bridge-building efforts that improved the AMBER Alert Program.

Munn developed innovative ways to provide AMBER Alert training to thousands of broadcasters and law enforcement officers at the University of South Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

“A pioneer in bridging the gap between law enforcement and the media, Hugh understood the perspectives of both but insisted both must focus on children. Hugh made an incredible impact and left a lasting legacy for others to follow in his footsteps of protecting children,” said Phil Keith, AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program Director.

Munn was a longtime journalist when he became the first public information officer for the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division in 1979.

He served in that capacity for 26 years before going to the University of South Carolina. Munn was 70 years old and is survived by his wife and two daughters.

Two cars filled with trick-or-treating youngsters helped end a frightening night for two children abducted by their neighbor on Halloween in 2011. The Shasta County (CA) Sheriff's Office initiated an AMBER Alert for April Swartz after she took 7-year-old Michael Sandoval and his 5-year-old sister Mya fishing and never brought them home.

Shasta County Sheriff Lt. John Hubbard said they did not know the children were in danger until they interviewed the neighbors.

“We learned she was smoking meth and driving with the children, and then we knew they were in imminent danger,” said Hubbard. “Once we determined the criteria were met and made the decision the AMBER Alert went out quickly. It worked like clockwork.”

This was the first AMBER Alert for Hubbard and one of the first for California Highway Patrol Captain Greg Ferrero, who became the state's AMBER Alert Coordinator in October. “I got a call when I was on my way to a Halloween parade,” he said. “The coordination between the sheriff's office and our office was right on target. We determined the criteria were met and had the alert out in a very short time.”

Photo of John Hubbard — Shasta County Sheriff Lieutenant John Hubbard

Deann Nelson was driving with her nephew who was in a zombie costume when she heard the AMBER Alert on the radio and spotted the suspect's SUV. Razi Lovett was driving with his children who were dressed as Captain America, a cat, and a tiger when he saw the vehicle from the alert posted on a freeway sign.

Both motorists called 911 and followed the suspect without telling their trick-or-treaters what was going on. Deputies learned later that Swartz also saw the AMBER Alert and noticed cars were following her. She said she turned off her lights and parked her SUV and then tried to hide it with a camouflage blanket.

But the information from the citizens helped law enforcement narrow down the suspect's location, and a highway patrol helicopter eventually spotted the vehicle. Less than five hours after the alert was activated, the suspect was arrested and both children were found safe.

“It was a perfect example of what the AMBER Alert was made for,” said Hubbard. “The system works if you follow the guidelines and do not abuse it.” He said his biggest lesson learned is how important it is to quickly start investigating all missing children cases.

Photo of Greg Ferrero — California Highway Patrol Captain Greg Ferrero

Ferrero said the officers and sergeants at the Emergency Notification and Tactical Alert Center deserve credit for bringing the children home safely because they activated the alert so quickly. Still, he was glad he was prepared. “I made sure I was proficient in the law and policies to ensure I was providing correct answers,” he said. “I found none of the cases are black and white. They are all different.”

As a precaution, Ferrero always keeps a reference card in his wallet with the AMBER Alert criteria and protocol.

The motorists were modest when reporters asked them about their response. “I just did what anybody else would have done,” said Nelson. “It is a great feeling,” added Lovett. “You feel like you have a responsibility for all children. It could have been my kids.”

More than 900 children learned about the AMBER Alert at a child safety fair held May 5 in Kaysville, Utah. Child advocate Elaine Runyan-Simmons set up an AMBER Alert booth that included a popcorn machine and a “Wheel of Fortune” game with prizes for young visitors. A month earlier, Runyan-Simmons and the Davis County Chamber of Commerce presented a $10,000 check to the Utah AMBER Alert Program. The organization has now raised more than $25,000 for the Utah program during the past 4 years.

South Carolina created an Endangered Person Advisory two years ago for cases that do not meet the AMBER Alert criteria. Now South Carolina State Representative Rita Allison says more must be done to inform the public about this life-saving tool. In a February 17 column in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, she wrote that many people know someone elderly who suffers from dementia or Alzheimer's disease, and that these conditions can lead individuals to wander off or drive off and become hopelessly lost, often ending in tragedy because authorities do not have enough personnel to adequately search for them.

The Endangered Person Advisory is designed to supplement law enforcement's eyes when searching for one of these individuals. Allison wrote that broadcasting this information alerts the public to be on the lookout for the missing person, and that putting thousands of additional eyes on the streets, highways and sidewalks increases the possibility of a successful recovery and a happier ending to an unfortunate situation.

At the end of his final presentation on May 1, members of the AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program gave Arthur “Art” Bohanon a special Citation of Excellence for his dedication to helping children. Bohanon retired after years of training AMBER Alert partners on forensics and missing and abducted children.

“Your untiring efforts and personal commitment have impacted and changed the lives of many children, renewing the ultimate investment for the welfare of future generations,” noted Phil Keith, AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program Director.

More than 1 million people in the Netherlands have signed up to receive AMBER Alerts on their cell phones and computers, a remarkable number for a program that is only 3 years old and in a country with a population of 16.7 million.

“Since we launched the AMBER Alert in November 2008, we have consistently tried to keep it in the public eye,” said Netherlands AMBER Alert Coordinator Carlo Schippers.

Those who register receive the alerts through text, e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. An agreement was also recently reached with the Dutch Press Agency to automatically broadcast an AMBER Alert on radio and TV without prior approval. “No time is lost before all Dutch news media receive our message that way,” noted Schippers.

The Netherlands has issued 11 AMBER Alerts so far, and the alerts have directly resulted in finding the child in more than half of the cases.

The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) hosted an international conference in Brasilia, Brazil, to address the 8 million children who go missing each year. Participants from 14 countries attended the Global Missing Children's Network (GMCN) conference on February 9 to share best practices in dealing with the global problem of missing children.

“The problem of missing children touches every nation. Yet, most countries lack basic systems to respond,” said Ernie Allen, former President and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. “The meeting in Brazil is historic and represents the beginning of a global effort to build effective systems in every country.”

ICMEC created GMCN in 1998 to share best practices, information, and strategies on missing children. Nineteen countries are members: Albania, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Romania, Spain, South Africa, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Anthony Wayne formally recognized Mexican citizens who used the AMBER Alert to safely recover 2 children. The honors were held in Mexico City on November 28, 2011, during an AMBER Alert training session for emergency call takers. The state of San Luis Potosi used the AMBER Alert to find a 16-year-old boy last September, and the states of Morelos and Sonora worked together on an alert which led to the recovery of a 14-year-old girl last August. Last spring, law enforcement officials launched the new National AMBER Alert Protocol of Mexico, which is modeled after the U.S. AMBER Alert System.

Newfoundland AMBER Alert Coordinator Sergeant Sean Ennis shared his perspective on child abduction alerts for “The Notebook,” a publication for women law enforcement officers working in Atlantic Canada, the four provinces on the Atlantic coast.

“In Atlantic Canada we have been truly fortunate that we have not had to utilize the AMBER Alert program to assist in the safe recovery of an abducted child. Despite this statistic, we cannot fail to plan for such an event. If we are to gain knowledge from the hard lessons learned by others, we as police officers must remain ever vigilant in our preparations to ensure that if such a case does occur that we are ready to respond.

“Spreading the message in Atlantic Canada of an ongoing abducted child can pose significant logistical challenges. It must first be stated that our local media stand ready to assist us in the event of abduction. It is equally true that for those of us who live in a rural setting or reside in a province with a population density which does not make the use of overhead neon road signs feasible, we are challenged to find new and innovative ways to spread the message further.

“As one of the longest serving AMBER Alert Coordinators in Canada, I can honestly say there have been times when moving the message to the community was received with the same response as predicting a tsunami on the prairie. We as humans often are found unprepared because of an ‘it has never happened before, therefore it would not happen’ mind set. A review of history will reveal many such examples, when we ignore signs that in retrospect seem to be obvious.

“Community awareness and partnerships coupled with the success of the AMBER Alert Program have made it a necessary weapon in the arsenal of police services responding to child abduction cases. It should be said that the AMBER Alert Program is not designed to replace the investigative process, but it exists to enhance the search so that we might bring another child safely home.

“In Atlantic Canada, like the lighthouses that dot our coastlines, we must continue to remain vigilant, warning all of a potential threat which though unseen may loom just below the surface. We can achieve that goal by heightening community awareness and empowerment, and by educating our citizens on how they can assist police to ensure the safety of our children.”

Suspect Thomas Petersen being escorted by law enforcement.

On June 4, 2011, Thomas Petersen allegedly stabbed and killed his wife Judy and then fled in a red pickup with their 2-year-old son Jacob. Iowa issued an AMBER Alert and asked South Dakota to issue an alert the next day when detectives learned the suspect was using credit cards near Kadoka, South Dakota.

The 2011 AMBER Alert Law Enforcement Leadership Award was given to two sheriffs and a park ranger who risked their lives trying to bring young Jacob home safely.

Badlands National Park Ranger Bryan Warner heard the AMBER Alert and had a hunch that the suspect would travel by an exit on I-90. About 20 minutes later, Warner saw the suspect's truck, and he pulled Petersen over.

“I thought he was going to comply,” said Warner. “But he was talking really erratic and ran on me.”

Petersen raced off at speeds exceeding 120 miles per hour. Meanwhile, Jackson County, South Dakota Sheriff Ray Clements was asleep when he heard the AMBER Alert on the radio. He got up and was checking convenience stores in the area when he heard on the police scanner that a park ranger was following Petersen. The sheriff joined the park ranger in the high-speed pursuit of the suspect.

“Petersen looked at me and pointed to his 2-year-old boy to let me know he was in there,” said Clements. “I tried to get him to pull over and he would not stop.”

Badlands National Park Ranger Bryan Warner

Petersen nicked the park ranger's car and then rammed and sideswiped the sheriff. “I had a sick feeling this was going to get pretty bad, pretty quickly,” said Warner.

The sheriff's vehicle was hit three times, went into a spin, and rolled over four or five times. The suspect stopped; Warner pulled his gun. As Petersen drove away, he threw his son from the pickup. Warner grabbed the boy and put him in his car and went to check on Clements.

“I thought the sheriff was dead,” said Warner. “I was worried the suspect threw the kid out as a diversion to come back and kill us.”

The sheriff's vehicle was upside down, and Clements had three broken ribs. Despite his injuries, he urged Warner to continue the pursuit and leave the boy with him.

“This kid was so nice,” said Clements. “He was scared obviously, but he would not let go of me when the ambulance came. My number one goal was to protect that kid.”

Other law enforcement agencies joined the chase, including Haakon County, South Dakota Sheriff Mel Smith. Petersen was driving at more than 90 miles per hour when he tried to crash into Smith's vehicle.

“He was trying to hit me head on,” said Smith. “But I think he thought ‘This is it!’ and closed his eyes and the truck hit me on the side and forced me in a ditch. I thought it was over for me, as well.”

The suspect's truck caught fire and Petersen jumped out and tried to come after Smith. “I was ready to shoot him,” said Smith. “I lost my glasses in the accident and thought he had a gun on me.”

Within moments other law enforcement officers arrived, including Ranger Warner. A standoff ensued, and Petersen begged officers to shoot him.

“Time stood still,” said Warner. “He hid a weapon under his shirt while we were talking to him.” Another deputy used a taser gun, and Petersen was finally taken into custody.

Sheriff Clements was taken to the hospital, but he returned to work the next day. “I was only doing my job,” said Clements. “If I had to do it all over again I would do it again. I was not going to let him hurt somebody.” Clements started in law enforcement in 1994 and has been sheriff of Jackson County for three years. The sheriff was also involved with the first AMBER Alert in South Dakota, and he credits this alert for bringing the boy safely home.

Ranger Warner has been with the National Park Service since 2010 and recently relocated to Washington. Prior to that, he was a sheriff's deputy in Grand Traverse, Michigan. He became involved with another AMBER Alert in California, and he is grateful park rangers receive the same child abduction training as other law enforcement officers.

“Next to my marriage, the second happiest day of my life was seeing the sheriff walk out and having the kid safe,” said Warner. “It is just part of being a police officer. I was honored to get the award, but I never thought I would get anything more than someone saying, ‘Hey good job.’”

Sheriff Smith was a homebuilder and a rancher before he was elected sheriff of Haakon County in January 2011. He was treated for his injuries and returned to work the next day.

“The award is a great honor. The AMBER Alert made it possible for us to reach the suspect quickly. We should support the AMBER Alert and stay behind it because it works,” said Smith.

Petersen has been charged with the attempted murders of the two sheriffs in South Dakota and the murder of his wife in Iowa.

Three recipients of a law enforcement leadership award — Law Enforcement Leadership Award winners (from left) Mel Smith, Bryan Warner, and Ray Clements.

Photo of Dick and Eugenia Novik — Dick and Eugenia Novik

Dick Novik's career in broadcasting began humbly in 1963 when he was hired to hold cue cards at a New York TV station. He went on to become a salesman, general manager, and radio station owner. For the past decade, he has been the senior vice president of the New York Broadcasters Association, which represents 400 radio stations and 45 TV stations in the state.

During his time with the broadcasters association, Novik learned about AMBER Alerts. It was his experience as a father that motivated him to help create the New York AMBER Alert Plan, he said.

“When I first heard of the AMBER Alert concept, I thought, of course, broadcasters will participate because they are all parents,” said Novik. “I pitched it to the broadcasters, and they all gave me their home numbers and cell numbers so they could participate. I have gotten nothing but enthusiasm from broadcasters.”

New York AMBER Alert Coordinator Gary Kelly said the state's program works because Novik participates in every AMBER Alert review and is constantly educating broadcasters about the alert.

“He has a 100 per cent buy-in from broadcasters in New York state,” said Kelly. “He continues to have strong relationships with broadcasters, which allows us to focus on new technology. I cannot say enough about Dick Novik because I do not know where our program would be without him.”

Even though his background is in broadcasting, Novik has had a role in developing new technology for AMBER Alerts, as well. For example, the taxi and limousine commissioner told him four years ago that every vehicle in New York City has an LED screen for drivers to learn about traffic conditions as well as a TV screen for customers.

“That triggered an idea, and I said it would be great if a taxi driver could help save an abducted child,” said Novik. The commissioner said he would make it happen, and now more than 30,000 taxis and limousines in New York City receive AMBER Alerts. Novik is now working to get the alerts in private rented cars.

New York Missing & Exploited Children Center Manager Ken Buniak described Novik this way when presenting him with the Hope Award in 2009: “I would characterize Dick as an ordinary person who does extraordinary things. His integrity, commitment, kindness, and ability to generate collaboration between so many people and groups are always evident and are always making a difference.”

Novik also facilitated a 30-minute Webcast in 2009 to train broadcasters on AMBER Alerts. The interactive Webcasts are now used for other AMBER Alert partners.

“I think it is important that we are called AMBER Alert partners,” said Novik. “There cannot be any competition. Logic says it has to be done as quickly as possible with as little red tape as possible so we make sure we focus on the child.”

So far, every AMBER Alert in the state of New York has ended with the safe recovery of a child. Novik said the one alert that stands out for him involved a woman watching an AMBER Alert on TV, who then looked out her window and saw the suspect's car. The police arrived immediately and found a little girl inside the car trunk.

“If there was no AMBER Alert that little girl could have been dead,” said Novik. “The thrill of saving a child helps us keep going to make sure the next AMBER Alert works.”

Most recently, Novik's passion for the AMBER Alert program earned him recognition as the 2011 AMBER Alert Broadcaster of the Year. “It is thrilling to know you have something that works,” said Novik. “Broadcasters are licensed to serve the public and I cannot think of any way we can do it better than with an AMBER Alert.”

More than 230 Utah law enforcement officers and other AMBER Alert partners attended a free statewide conference called “When Seconds Count: Abducted Children, Fallen Officers, and Missing Persons.” At the training, Erin Runnion and Elaine Runyan-Simmons shared their experiences after their daughters were abducted and murdered. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff announced the launch of the Blue Alert for fallen officers and a name change for the Endangered Person Advisory. The alert for non-AMBER Alert cases is now called the Endangered Missing Advisory. The Davis County Chamber of Commerce raised the funds to support the 1-day conference.

The Office of the Chihuahua Attorney General in Juárez, Mexico, passed out fliers in November as part of a campaign to stop the disappearances of women and girls. The fliers were used to alert people to the Alba Protocol, a program similar to the AMBER Alert, which is used to notify the public when a person is missing. The Attorney General's Office said there are 57 current investigations about missing women and young girls in Juárez so far this year. The public can report missing women to the toll-free number 01-800-838-78-30.

Mexican law enforcement officers detained more than 1,000 men and women in July during an investigation of sexual exploitation and human trafficking in Juárez. The Mexican Public Safety Ministry said the sweep was part of Mexico's child abduction recovery plan under the new National AMBER Alert Program.

Officers removed people out of 24 bars, 3 hotels, and 2 guest homes and transported them to state police offices. A total of 20 female minors were rescued, and 500 men and 530 women were detained on suspicion of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

On the same day of the operation, the AMBER Alert operation was launched, and Mexican officials issued an Alba Alert for an 18-year-old girl who went missing on her way to apply for a job in downtown Juárez. The alert was sent to U.S. immigration authorities in case she crossed the international bridge.

Dennis Lyle has a youthful smile, but he is a longtime veteran when it comes to the AMBER Alert. In 2001, Lyle used his experience as a broadcaster and his passion as a parent to help create a state AMBER Alert program in Illinois.

“The beauty of the AMBER Alert is it is a ‘how to manual’ on how to find abducted children,” said Lyle. “The AMBER Alert offers cut and dried procedures and a game plan.”

Lyle's broadcasting career began as an on-air personality in college. He later went into sales and management, and then purchased two radio stations. In 1999, Lyle was elected president of the Illinois Broadcasters Association. Two years later, he took up the challenge to use radio and TV to help find abducted children.

“I like the way the media has embraced and has become a critical component of the AMBER Alert,” said Lyle. “I like the fact that everyone has their marching orders, and everyone understands what their role is. People do not step on each other's toes, and no one challenges who makes the call. The cooperation has contributed to many successes.”

Lyle has spent the past decade educating fellow broadcasters about the AMBER Alert program. At a recent state convention, he had more than 500 broadcasters, law enforcement officers, state legislators, and other AMBER Alert partners take part in an interactive training session on the child abduction notification plan.

He also has pushed his colleagues to air public service announcements about the AMBER Alert and writes regularly about the alert in his newsletter for broadcasters. Lyle's efforts were recognized in 2010 when he was named the AMBER Alert Broadcaster/Media Person of the Year.

“This is one of the biggest honors I have ever received,” said Lyle. “Everybody involved in the AMBER Alert is dedicated to what it can mean to the recovery of abducted children. It is a labor of love, and we will do everything we can to keep the program alive.”

Lyle says much of the credit should be shared with Illinois AMBER Alert Coordinator and Missing Person Clearinghouse Director Cinda Lubich. He encourages all state AMBER Alert Coordinators to develop close relationships with their state broadcasting association.

“Herding different disciplines together is like herding cats,” said Lyle. “It takes someone with Cinda's law enforcement side to help us understand the minor details about what does or does not meet the AMBER Alert criteria.”

The National AMBER Alert Symposiums have also been a critical place for Lyle to learn from his broadcaster colleagues and other AMBER Alert partners. “It is a great opportunity to sit across from someone in law enforcement and the media to discuss criteria and what can be done better,” said Lyle.

Recently Lyle spent time preparing for the national test of the Emergency Alert System, which was held on November 9. “The test proved its worth. It identified what worked and what could be corrected,” said Lyle. Likewise, the broadcaster said each AMBER Alert Plan should be constantly reviewed and tested so it will work when needed most.

As for the future, Lyle said he would like to see AMBER Alerts on more media platforms, and he wishes people would have to opt out of getting alerts on their phones instead of opting in.

One final wish: “I would love to see the day when you do not need an AMBER Alert.” Until that happens, Lyle plans to keep learning and teaching others about the AMBER Alert.

April 11, 2011, Federal Way, Washington. Police issued an AMBER Alert after an 8-year-old girl disappeared from a playground shortly after a man in his 20s was seen taking pictures of children at the playground. A short while later, a department store clerk noticed a man, wanting to buy clothes for a young girl, was acting strangely. The employee checked her iPhone AMBER Alert application and saw the man and child matched the description in the AMBER Alert. Store personnel called the police, who arrested Benjamin Trinh, 28, of Tacoma, Washington, and charged him with kidnapping.

Child Abduction Alert Launched in Australia — The Queensland (Australia) Police started the Child Abduction Alert system to notify the public about suspected child abductions. The program began December 29, 2010, and initially involved only radio stations, but will be expanded to include television, taxi companies, buses, lotto agents, and transportation. The alert uses the same criteria as the U.S. AMBER Alert plan.

Malaysia Begins Alert System for Missing Children — The abduction and murder of an 8-year-old girl four years ago prompted Malaysia to create the NUR (Nationwide Urgent Response) Alert for missing children. The plan began in January 2011 and is patterned after the U.S. AMBER Alert system. The alerts will be distributed to broadcasters, government agencies, banks, hotels, and transportation agencies within 24 hours after a child younger than 12 years old has been reported missing.

Saipan to Start AMBER Alert Program — The western Pacific island of Saipan will soon have an AMBER Alert program. Saipan is the largest of 15 islands that are part of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Gov. Benigno R. Fital announced the plan on May 31, 2011, six days after two sisters, ages 9 and 10, were reported missing.

Belgium Starts Child Alert Plan — Belgium launched the Child Alert system in February for children who have disappeared and are in a life-threatening situation. The alerts will go to road signs, radio and television stations, mobile telephone providers, Internet service providers, electronic billboards, and company networks. The alerts will remain active for six hours but can be renewed to be active for as long as 24 hours. Belgium became the focus of international attention after a 3-year-old British girl went missing in 2007. The parents of Madeleine McCann immediately called for Belgium and all European countries to start a system similar to the U.S. AMBER Alert program.

Photographed from left: Pueblo of Laguna Police Chief Michelle Ray, Sergeant Ray Jose, and Criminal Investigator Frances Flores — Shown from left: Pueblo of Laguna Police Chief Michelle Ray, Sergeant Ray Jose, and Criminal Investigator Frances Flores.

It was nearly midnight when officers broke down the hotel room door at the Route 66 Casino and Hotel. Inside, they found 3-year-old Ismyella Rodriguez, her alleged abductor, and four other adults. Ismyella was safe, and no one was injured during the dramatic rescue that ended 10 hours after a violent abduction, an AMBER Alert, and the mobilization of federal, local, city, and Tribal law enforcement officers.

On April 6, 2011, 24-year-old Mario Rodriguez allegedly kicked in the door of an apartment in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and snatched Ismyella after pushing her babysitter off a second story balcony.

The Albuquerque Police Department set up a command post with phone banks and issued an AMBER Alert. Sgt. Louis Heckroth and other members of the Repeat Offender Project were called in to track the suspect.

"When they did the AMBER Alert activation, all the phones were set up and ready to go," said Heckroth.

FBI Special Agents Marcus McCaskill and Ben Bourgeois heard about the abduction on police scanners and quickly headed to the command post to offer assistance and access to their databases for all the tips coming in.

"Once we got everyone in the same room, our efficiency went through the roof," said Bourgeouis.

"We were also getting a lot of calls on the tip line because of the AMBER Alert," added McCaskill.

An out-of-state family member heard about the AMBER Alert and provided enough information to support a police search for the suspect at the Pueblo of Laguna reservation. Albuquerque police officers and FBI agents knew the Pueblo of Laguna Police Department would be critical to saving the child.

“You hear all the horror stories between tribal police and law enforcement agencies, and it has not happened here," said Pueblo of Laguna Police Chief Michelle Ray. “We all work really well together. We have a common goal, and everything seems to fall in place."

City and federal law enforcement officers traveled in the same vehicles and met with the tribal police at the Route 66 Casino and Hotel. Tribal investigators had worked with casino employees previously, and those relationships helped eliminate the red tape so police could quickly pinpoint where the suspect might be hiding with the victim.

"I had the tribal police and FBI with us, so once the investigation led to a specific hotel room, I could authorize a hostage rescue," said Heckroth.

The rescue went off without a hitch, and the victim's family was overjoyed the girl was safe. "It was like the Super Bowl! Woo-hoo! Just jumping, like oh-my-gosh!" family friend Loretta Ortega told reporters.

Investigators said it would have been very hard to catch up with the suspects if they kept on driving. They believe the AMBER Alert scared the suspects into hunkering down in a hotel room so they would not risk being caught on the road.

Everyone involved in the child abduction investigation said some valuable lessons were learned from this AMBER Alert:

"Our AMBER Alert training helped," said Ray. "It was great to hear how all the agencies worked together to get the child home safely."
"Everyone knew what their role was, which is important in this type of investigation," said Heckroth. "You need to know what to do in advance. If you wait until the day it happens, you can put lives in danger."
"The AMBER Alert worked exactly the way it was supposed to work," said Bourgeouis. "You get everyone up and running quicker with an AMBER Alert than any other way," added McCaskill.

Mario Rodriguez faces kidnapping charges, and three other adults have been charged in connection with the abduction. Ismyella Rodriguez is now living with relatives.

Photo of Sam Allen — Sam Allen became Texas' first statewide AMBER Alert Coordinator in 2004.

Texas is where the AMBER Alert began, but Sam Allen was entering uncharted territory when he was hired to become the state's first statewide AMBER Alert Coordinator in 2004. As one of the nation's few "full-time" AMBER Alert coordinators, Allen relied on his 15 years of experience at the Texas Department of Public Safety to make this new job work.

"You walk in and figure it out as you go," said Allen. "This has been the most challenging and the most rewarding job I have ever had."

To begin, he developed an accredited statewide training program for law enforcement personnel. The program has grown exponentially along the way. From September 2008 to August 2010, Allen instructed 76 courses for 3,397 people. Another 3,745 people were trained through the department's online program.

"With 254 counties in Texas, having an online training resource is one of the smartest decisions we have ever made," said Allen. "Considering the staffing and economic challenges most law enforcement agencies face today, it is difficult to send personnel out-of-town for training."

Allen also put together an AMBER Alert Steering Committee and an After-Action Review Board to troubleshoot the state's network and promote effective alert coordination. Media, transportation, and law enforcement representatives work as partners to combat child abductions. "Listen and learn from your partners," he said. "Communication is everything. Keep an open mind and be ready to accept and make changes."

In addition to the state's AMBER Alert network, Texas has 18 independent regional programs that issue their own AMBER Alerts. Regional programs include multiple counties, spanning large geographical areas of the state. "We have regional programs with population centers larger than some U.S. states," said Allen. Several regional programs in Texas incorporate counties of adjoining states, and one program includes areas in Mexico.

Each year, Allen organizes a two-day summit for all regional AMBER Alert Coordinators. "I am like the phone company. I am here to connect people," Allen said. "Knowledge is the way to fight the battle, so we are not desensitizing the public to AMBER Alerts."

The coordinators plan the itinerary, which ensures the discussions are relevant and engaging. "If you are a new coordinator, you are going to need all the help you can get," said Allen. "The networking and information give new and seasoned coordinators a friend or two to call upon during future AMBER Alerts."

During the past seven years, Allen has also kept up with the Texas legislature. State lawmakers have tweaked the AMBER Alert program, added a Silver Alert for missing senior citizens, along with a Blue Alert for suspects who have seriously injured or killed a law enforcement officer. Legislators are now considering another alert for people with intellectual disabilities.

Allen keeps statistics on all the alerts. The numbers for statewide alerts as of June 1, 2011, include the following:

68 AMBER Alerts involving the safe recovery of 75 children (beginning August 2002)
2 Blue Alerts involving the location of one suspect (beginning August 2008)
226 Silver Alerts involving the safe recovery of 212 senior citizens (beginning September 2007)

"I track everything," said Allen. "I want to know how many were on foot and how many were in a vehicle. Statistics are vital toward making informed decisions."

When he has spare time, Allen likes to bowl, watch movies, and play video and board games. "I'm a big geek," said Allen. "However, I have made this job a priority because Texas citizens expect my best when it comes to the safety of their families and loved ones."

"I like working with people who are making a difference to save lives," he added. "I want to fight for those who can't fight for themselves."

On January 12, 2011, AMBER Alert, the most effective tool to save abducted children, teamed up with Facebook, the most successful social network in history, to save abducted children.

AMBER Alert suddenly has lots of new friends. Facebook has begun posting AMBER Alerts that more than 750 million users worldwide—more than 130 million of them in the U.S.—can view.

Facebook worked with the Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to create a main AMBER Alert page and 53 additional pages for the 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia.

"AMBER Alerts depend on partnerships between public and private entities to get the word out when a child goes missing," said Laurie O. Robinson, Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Justice Programs and National AMBER Alert Coordinator. "Social networking has few boundaries, and now AMBER Alerts will benefit from that nearly limitless reach."

NCMEC posts the initial alerts, updates, and cancellations for each geographical area. Facebook users can sign up to receive the alerts in their area by simply becoming a friend. Those friends can then post the alerts and send them to others.

"We know time is the enemy in the search for abducted children, and people on Facebook will allow the alerts to become viral, not just in local jurisdictions, but across the country and around the world," said Ernie Allen, NCMEC President and CEO. "It is free, and it is going to save lives."

The AMBER Alert sites do not contain any advertising, and Facebook users cannot post comments on the state pages. This plan will ensure that the only information about the AMBER Alert will come from the law enforcement agency that issued the alert. Once the alert is canceled, Facebook removes the post from all sites so users will not search for a child who has already been found.

Facebook also donated more than 25 million advertising impressions to promote the AMBER Alert pages. Just 5 months after the launch, the main AMBER Alert page has over 60,000 friends and nearly 500,000 people view the site each week. The vast majority of the people using the site are from the United States, but it has attracted friends from 18 other countries as far away as India, Turkey, and Malaysia.

"Facebook is more than a social network, it is one of the largest communication platforms," said Chris Sonderby, Facebook Lead Security and Investigations Counsel. "The more people who participate, the better. It is a small step that can make a big difference in the life of a child."

The main page has a link to each of the state pages and has become a community bulletin board for the AMBER Alert Program and efforts to find abducted children. Within minutes after a new post goes up on the main AMBER Alert page, tens of thousands of people can view the site and post comments. Here is a sampling of some of the comments made shortly after the launch:

"It will be amazing what Facebook can do for AMBER Alert. It is national and fast and gives more info than just people and vehicles. We will be asking 'Why did we take so long?'"

"It is the best example of how the Internet can be a useful tool."

"This is right on time. AMERICA unite; find these missing children!!!"

"My heart breaks and my stomach gets knots every time I hear an AMBER Alert. However, when a child is located and saved, the joy is AMAZING! What a great tool to help protect our children and unite us in the fight."

"I cannot wait to start hearing the success stories of children being found through Facebook!"

Col. Steven Flaherty, Virginia State Police Superintendent, spoke at the Facebook/AMBER Alert launch on how his state has already used the social network to find an abducted child. On December 6, 2010, the Roanoke (Virginia) Police Department issued an AMBER Alert for a 12-year-old girl who had been abducted after her mother was murdered. The alert was posted on the Virginia State Police Facebook page, and the story picked up national attention. Five days later, a woman recognized the victim from a television story, and the girl was recovered safely in San Francisco.

"We would have not had as many leads without our Facebook fans," said Flaherty. "Social media enabled law enforcement to reach beyond our borders to find this 12-year-old girl. Her search started with an AMBER Alert and spread because of social media and traditional media. I can only imagine or dream what we can do now."

On January 15, Facebook posted its first AMBER Alert for a 13-year-old Columbus, Missouri, girl. More than 63,000 people viewed the original post, and the girl was found the following day in Jasper, Alabama.

Julie Fisher believes Facebook has the potential to save many children. The Massachusetts mother regularly posts updates on AMBER Alerts across the country. She also encourages others to sign up for the alerts in their own states.

"I just want this to be a safer world for everyone, especially children," said Fisher. "Facebook is a great way to spread the alerts because even if you are not in the area of the alert, a friend, or a friend of a friend may cross their path. What better use of networking is there? Someone may be in the right place at the right time and save a life."

What's on the National AMBER Alert Facebook page:

Links to state AMBER pages
Current AMBER Alert news
AMBER Advocate Editions
Hundreds of millions of potential people who can help find a missing child

What's on the State AMBER Alert Facebook pages:

Current active AMBER Alerts automatically issued by NCMEC
A local network of concerned citizens eager to help in the recovery of a child

Panel discussion during Alerta AMBER meeting in Mexico City — Mexico plans to have a fully operational nationwide AMBER Alert Program by early 2012.

Mexico is now fully committed to the AMBER Alert Program. Top Mexican law enforcement and government officials announced on April 28, 2011, in Mexico City that a national protocol and implementation of Alerta AMBER for the entire country.

The Attorney General's Office will oversee Mexico's AMBER Alert Program with support from the Public Safety Ministry and the National Registry of Missing Persons. The plan will create a network between law enforcement, government officials, and the media to immediately notify the public when a child has been abducted.

"It is necessary to establish coordination, maximize the use of technology, and provide training to those responsible for operating the AMBER Alert in each of the states," said Francisco Blake Mora, Mexico's Secretary of the Interior.

The Mexican House of Representatives is already considering legislation to strengthen and expand the AMBER Alert Program. Rep. Arturo Zamora Jiménez presented an amendment to make the program part of the Mexican legal code.

"This is an act of utmost importance to protect the interests of minors," said Rep. Zamora Jiménez. "We need to commit our country to protecting the rights of children and adolescents and stopping crimes involving Mexican children."

In 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice began the Southern Border Initiative to extend the AMBER Alert Program into Mexico. Baja California launched the first AMBER Alert Program in Mexico in 2009. Tamaulipas, Nuevo Léon, and Sonora are also developing AMBER Alert programs, and Chihuahua has a child abduction alert plan that uses a different name.

OJJDP Program Manager Cecilia Duquela has worked with Fox Valley Technical College for the past five years to make this dream a reality. "Obviously, I'm very proud and excited about this partnership with Mexico to rescue children and bring them home," said Duquela.

She said federal law enforcement agencies and state attorneys general offices were on board since the beginning. "The best way to describe it is engaged," she said. "They are committed to bringing AMBER Alerts into their states."

Mexico plans to have a fully operational nationwide AMBER Alert Program by early 2012.

According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, nearly 400 American children have been recovered in Mexico. "Obviously, you want to make all the resources and tools available to keep all children safe, but this will bring more U.S. children home," added Duquela.

The worldwide impact of AMBER Alerts finally hit home for NCMEC President Ernie Allen when he met the president and first lady of France three years ago. Allen was about to speak to President Jacques Chirac when his wife Bernadette told Allen, “Last week we recovered two French missing children through the use of your AMBER Alert.”

A total of nine countries outside the United States now have AMBER Alert Programs: Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium and Switzerland. Plans are also underway for child abduction alerts in Mexico and Italy, and a European Child Alert Automated System is being developed to coordinate alerts among partner countries for cross-border activations.

“Many countries are looking to the United States for advice on AMBER Alerts,” said Caroline Humer, International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) Program Director.

Humer oversaw the International Workshop at the 2010 National AMBER Alert Symposium. In Canada, Alberta launched the first AMBER Alert Program in 2003, and each province now has its own policy; in 2010, Canada started using wireless AMBER Alerts, and several provinces also use Facebook to distribute alerts. In Greece, the child abduction alert, called “The Smile of the Child,” was launched in 2007 and is similar to the AMBER Alert Program; ICMEC has provided training, and a grant from the European Union was used to develop automatic alerts. In the Netherlands, the AMBER Alert Program was started in 2008 with alerts being distributed to broadcasters, Short Message Service (SMS), e-mail, billboards, and the border patrol, and in 2010 the Netherlands also started using the social networks Twitter, Igoogle, Facebook, and Hyves to distribute alerts. In Switzerland, the AMBER Alert Program was started in 2010 in response to a child who was murdered one year earlier; federal police oversee the program, but local police decide to initiate alerts, and each alert is quickly translated into English, French, Italian, and German.

Humer noted that Interpol has been helpful in pushing the AMBER Alert Program throughout Europe.

AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program Director Phil Keith sums up the reason behind the massive effort to bring AMBER Alerts into Mexico in a few words: “Our goal is pretty simple: to protect children.”

In 2006, the Department of Justice launched the Southern Border Initiative (SBI) to extend the AMBER Alert Programs into Mexico and develop a seamless network throughout North America. “The experience in Mexico is similar to what was encountered in the United States and Canada with regard to the struggles and challenges of implementation,” noted Keith.

Baja California launched Mexico's first AMBER Alert Program in 2009. The Baja California Attorney General has been instrumental in pushing the program. So far, Baja California has issued two alerts but has received more than 50 requests. Chihuahua has a system that is similar to the AMBER Alert Program but has a different name. Tamaulipas is the second state to develop an AMBER Alert Program, with representatives from health, public safety, transportation, and other government agencies all participating in child recovery training; a mass media campaign for AMBER Alerts will be launched soon. Nuevo León is developing what it hopes will be Mexico's first comprehensive child recovery program, with an AMBER Alert plan also being developed with the help of the state's Attorney General.

The SBI also set some goals for the upcoming year, including developing a best practice guide and translating all AMBER Alert documents into Spanish, starting a help desk for Spanish speaking professionals, continuing joint training sessions and developing online training courses, partnering with international transportation organizations, and creating formal documents to outline responsibilities and protocols.

“There is still much to be done, but the Department of Justice and its partners will continue to work to bring the AMBER Alert Program to Mexico,” said Cecilia Duquela-Fuentes, OJJDP Program Manager.

Representatives from both sides of the border have met regularly since 2006. They also have met with high level decision makers to fully implement AMBER Alerts in Mexico. “Patience, compromise, and partnership are all needed to develop programs across Mexico,” said Tamaulipas AMBER Alert Coordinator Willy Zuniga Castillo.

Isabel Miranda de Wallace, the mother of an abduction victim who was murdered, hopes the AMBER Alert Programs will make a real difference in her country. “You are surrounded by fellow sons and daughters of Mexico, all of whom share the goal of protecting children.”

“Many countries are looking to the United States for advice on AMBER Alerts,” said Caroline Humer, International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) Program Director.

Humer noted that Interpol has been helpful in pushing the AMBER Alert Program throughout Europe.

Charles Fleeger speaking at a press conference. — College Station, Texas, Police Lieutenant Charles Fleeger

What if a child were abducted in my hometown? College Station, Texas, Police Lieutenant Charles Fleeger said that question haunted him in 2001, and it started him on a journey to do more to find missing and abducted children. He said he was also motivated by his 8-year-old daughter.

“As a dad that scared the heck out of me,” recalled Fleeger. “What would happen if something happened to my daughter? Would we be ready? I know we cannot plan for every eventuality, but as a police officer and as a parent, I wanted to be able to stand before a parent and say we did everything we could and did not wait to the last second to do it.”

Fleeger gathered representatives from law enforcement, broadcasting, and dispatch centers and they began looking at other AMBER Alert programs. The radio stations in the area were not staffed 24 hours a day, but Fleeger found out that broadcasters could be notified at any time through the Emergency Alert System. In June 2003, the Texas Region 3 AMBER Alert Plan was launched for seven counties.

“We started building relationships with the AMBER Alert Program,” said Fleeger. “We were able to get representatives from all of the law enforcement agencies in the area to agree on something, and that was pretty darn unprecedented. It was actually an easy sell. Who wants to be the sheriff who is against finding missing kids?”

The new AMBER Alert Coordinator and his team started to train, hold quarterly meetings, and wait. They continued to train, find ways to improve their AMBER Alert plan, and wait. Sometimes Fleeger would use his own money and vacation time for more training. After more than 7 years, the regional AMBER Alert plan has never had to activate an alert.

“We have gotten scared a couple of times, but I keep telling people my goal in law enforcement is that we never have to use the AMBER Alert,” said Fleeger. “We will practice, train, and get people on board, but we never have to push that button.”

Fleeger said officers learn how to storm buildings, conduct high speed pursuits, and react during a gun battle, and they should be just as prepared when a child is missing.

In 2009, Fleeger heard about the Child Abduction Response Team (CART) and more questions vexed him. “What will we do after we ring this bell? Are we ready to respond to an AMBER Alert? The answer was no. We need to set up a plan to respond.”

Fleeger and representatives from all seven counties trained to start a CART. They invited social workers, search and rescue teams, fire fighters, and others who were not involved in the AMBER Alert Program to be on the CART. In January 2010, the Brazos Valley Regional CART was launched with Fleeger as the CART Coordinator.

“Our agency does not have the resources if we have a case like Amber Hagerman or Elizabeth Smart,” said Fleeger. “We continue to build relationships across jurisdictional lines so we can help each other when something big happens.”

Not surprisingly, the CART has never been activated. It is also not a surprise Fleeger was named the 2010 AMBER Alert Coordinator of the Year for his dedication to finding missing and abducted children.

“I was so shocked and humbled when I heard about the award,” said Fleeger. “I feel like I now have to go out and earn it. I definitely do not want to rest on what has occurred in the past. I want to keep chugging forward to do the best we can.”

Next year, Fleeger plans to get the Brazos Valley CART nationally certified and bring additional training to his area on how to canvass a neighborhood when a child is missing.

Mugshot of suspect Donnie Shelton alongside portrait of daughter Elysha Shelton — Suspect Donnie Shelton, left, and his daughter, abduction victim Elysha Shelton, right.

Donnie Shelton had a protective order forbidding him from contacting his estranged wife and their children. Authorities at the Pickens County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina said the order did not stop Shelton from breaking into the family home on Monday, November 22, 2010, and attacking his wife and 10-year-old son. The father found his 8-year-old daughter hiding in a closet and forced her into his truck.

Dispatchers received the initial call at 6 p.m. and investigators tried to find the child before contacting the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division at 11:40 p.m. about issuing an AMBER Alert. Lieutenant Cal Reighley said he considered the father's history of domestic violence and drug problems before sending the alert out just after midnight.

“We felt like the child was in danger because of his history of violence and how he took the child,” said Reighley. “It was better to be safe than sorry, and we decided to go ahead and issue the AMBER Alert.”

Reighley notified the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and contacted all AMBER Alert partners. He also made a courtesy call to Georgia and North Carolina about the alert. Every part of the South Carolina AMBER Alert Plan seemed to be working.

At 3:30 a.m. Tuesday, a man showed up at the Baptist Regional Medical Center in Corbin, Kentucky, with a girl who said she had stomach pains. A nurse became suspicious when the girl would not make eye contact with her. Staff members checked an AMBER Alert website and discovered the child had been abducted three states away in South Carolina. The police arrived at 4:05 a.m. and arrested Shelton.

Patti Ruff, the South Carolina AMBER Alert Coordinator, said she was about to relieve Reighley when the AMBER Alert was cancelled.

“I think the alert was awesome,” said Ruff. “Whoever took the initiative to check online to see if there was an AMBER Alert should be recognized. They could have checked the little girl and sent her on her way with her father. This is a lesson for all hospital staff members to check something out even if there is not an AMBER Alert in their state.”

Ruff became the state AMBER Alert Coordinator only seven months before this alert went out. She offered this advice for other new coordinators: “Work with someone who is experienced and has been involved with AMBER Alerts. If you are a parent and you are new to the process, you will want to activate the alert as fast as you can. However, it is important to get it right, so you do not desensitize the public with too many alerts.”

“You learn something with every alert, and nothing happens exactly the same with each one,” added Reighley. “The biggest surprise was where the suspect was located. The most important lesson we learned was to check other states because the suspect can pretty much go anywhere, and you do not know where they will turn up.”

Shelton has been charged with assault and battery, burglary, custodial interference, criminal domestic violence, and trespassing.

The Mexican state of Nuevo León has signed on to create Mexico's first comprehensive child recovery program. The plan came after Nuevo León prosecutors, child protection officials, investigators, and legislators met in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Monterrey, Mexico, in September for the Department of Justice's AMBER Alert Southern Border Initiative.

More than 4.5 million people live in the Mexican state, which borders Texas. Nuevo León Attorney General Alejandro Garza y Garza signed an agreement on child protection related issues with the Attorney General of Texas that will be the foundation for the plan.

"We want to be able to recover children in our country," said Manuel Guzmán, an engineer with a training and education company in Monterrey, Mexico who is assisting with the development of distance learning courses related to the AMBER Alert Southern Border Initiative. "Nuevo León is a state in transit because many people from other countries come through here to go to the United States. We have to worry about these situations and how they affect missing children."

Guzmán said the attorney general, governor, and legislators in Nuevo León will work together to establish good relationships with the border states on the issue of missing and abducted children. Efforts will also be made to educate the public and train police officers on child recovery practices.

Ron Laney, Associate Administrator of OJJDP's Child Protection Division, said Nuevo León's plan is very impressive considering the strife going on in Mexico right now. "They are at war," said Laney. "It speaks volumes that they care enough to come to a meeting to learn about protecting children. They know they are looking at life and death every day, but that has not stopped their commitment to look out for children."

Baja California was the first Mexican state to establish an AMBER Alert program in May 2009, and was soon followed by the state of Tamaulipas. Jim Walters, Southern Border Initiative Liaison for Training and Technical Assistance, said Nuevo León is taking child recovery efforts a step further. "Nuevo León has started the first regional and comprehensive child recovery program in Mexico," said Walters. "They are interested in creating a program that works to recover missing, endangered and abducted children, regardless of borders."

The Mexican state of Tamaulipas has developed a statewide AMBER Alert program, "Alerta AMBER-Tamaulipas", to help in the recovery of missing and abducted children in the state and across the U.S. – Mexico border. Tamaulipas is the second Mexican state to join the AMBER Alert network. Since it participated in the initial AMBER Alert Southern Border Initiative meeting held in San Diego, California, in September of 2009, Tamaulipas has made steadfast progress in developing the necessary resources to implement a successful program.

Even though the state is currently facing unprecedented levels of violence, it has made the establishment of an AMBER Alert program one of its top priorities. In 2009 Tamaulipas appointed a State AMBER Alert Coordinator, Willy Zúñiga Castillo, who is part of the Office of the State Attorney General. Mr. Zúñiga Castillo has taken the lead in educating the media, law enforcement, public safety, health and other stakeholders and partners across the state in the importance of AMBER Alerts and the criteria required to activate an Alert. He was also responsible for coordinating specialized AMBER Alert training for state personnel from Tamaulipas. Representatives from Tamaulipas and Texas met in Brownsville, Texas in July of this year to receive joint AMBER Alert training as part of the Department of Justice's efforts to establish greater cooperation among U.S. and Mexican border states in cases involving endangered, missing and abducted children.

Under the leadership of the State Attorney General, Jaime Rodriguez Inurrigaro, and the Principal Deputy Attorney General, Hernán De La Garza Tamez, Tamaulipas has developed the operational bases for its statewide AMBER Alert program and for the development of an agreement with Texas on the issuance of AMBER Alerts. The state will also be an important resource in providing training and technical assistance to other Mexican states that wish to establish an AMBER Alert program, including the neighboring state of Nuevo León.

When a 15-year-old girl was recently killed in a weekend car accident in New Brunswick, Canada, residents did not get the news about her death from TV, radio, or the newspaper. Most people first heard about it on Facebook. The Canadian province is very rural, broadcasters are off-air during the weekend, and the newspaper would not print a story until the following Monday.

New Brunswick AMBER Alert Coordinator Todd Chadwick also saw the social networking site as the best way to instantly notify people when a child is abducted. "A lot of people rely on Facebook to get their local news," said Chadwick. "Our whole purpose was for quick dissemination, getting the message out as fast as possible."

New Brunswick has a population of 750,000, and Chadwick said more than two-thirds of the residents are signed up on Facebook.

However, Chadwick wanted to make sure the integrity of the AMBER Alert program was not put in jeopardy by adding a Facebook page. The AMBER Alert page does not contain advertising, and people are not allowed to post comments. "We just wanted to push the message out, not take information back in," said Chadwick. "It is not a place to do research about AMBER Alert or to locate child safety information. It is just a tool to get the word out about an AMBER Alert."

Ontario and Prince Edward Island have since launched official AMBER Alert pages as well.

An AMBER Alert has never been issued in New Brunswick, but Chadwick encourages residents to sign up for the AMBER Alert page in case it is needed. "As soon as we issue the AMBER Alert, it will immediately go to the Facebook page," said Chadwick. "They can go to the page and/or forward it to others. We can have an official message that is very powerful. So far, we have 27,000 people signed up."

Ron Laney has spent the past 35 years leading others to do more to protect children. The Associate Administrator of OJJDP's Child Protection Division said being a victim of an abusive childhood gave him the experience and the compassion to know what needed to be done.

Laney was 12 years old when his mother took her four children, left her physically abusive husband, and then struggled to raise them on her own by working at a five-and-dime store. Laney struggled as well and had minor brushes with the law until he was arrested and charged with larceny for stealing from a local business. He spent the next 11 months in reform school.

A police officer took interest in Laney and helped him join the Marines in 1964, six months after he left the school. He served as an infantry platoon sergeant in Vietnam where he was wounded by rocket fire in 1969. Laney honorably served in the Marines until October 30, 1970.

"The Marine Corps gave me the discipline and the drive to make something of myself," said Laney. "That drive and experience taught me to not be afraid to make decisions. When I got out of the Marine Corps, I wanted to do something to help children."

Laney went home to get an education and went to work for the Florida Department of Juvenile Probation. He said his military background was an advantage in working with juveniles and persuading them to do the right thing. He went to work at the U.S. Department of Justice in 1976 and eventually became the coordinator for missing children programs.

In 2002, the AMBER Alert child recovery program that began as a local system in Arlington, Texas, in 1996 became a nationally coordinated effort under the U.S. Department of Justice, and Laney was asked to help put it together. "We had to figure out what we were going to do and how we were going to do it," recalled Laney. "We started developing a training program and a model criteria. The goal was to have a seamless system across the country."

Along the way, Laney has won numerous awards, including a Commendation in the Congressional Record presented on July 24, 2006. In 2002, the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children created the Ronald C. Laney Distinguished Service Award for individuals who exhibit a lifetime of service to others.

"I think the most satisfying accomplishment is to know we have trained law enforcement and the media to do a better job of bringing missing and abducted children home," said Laney. "Bringing a child home safely is the biggest reward for me."

Laney does not plan to rest on his laurels. He would like to see more states create Child Abduction Response Teams and use the Endangered Missing Advisory to help child abduction cases that do not meet the AMBER Alert criteria. "The AMBER Alert criteria cover only a small percentage of children. Parents were telling me, 'What are you going to do to find my child?'" said Laney. "We are making people qualified to find our missing children. The more we fine tune the tools and resources available, the better off we will be. We want the AMBER Alert Program to be such a deterrent that people will give a second or third thought before taking a child."

Laney has a wife, two sons and is currently caring for two grandchildren. He may be famous for his work with missing children, but he is also well known for his sense of humor, his sunny disposition, and his leadership by example. Laney's lead in protecting children sets an example for all to follow.

An arresting moment during the Utah mock activation drill.

An actress during the Utah mock activation drill.

Gus Paidousis reviewing his notes for certification approval

CART Program Assessor Gus Paidousis reviews his notes.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff addresses the media.

More than 160 law enforcement officers from 27 agencies scrambled into the South Salt Lake City, Utah, police headquarters shortly after 7 a.m on April 7, 2010. Each officer had received a text message that the Utah Child Abduction Response Team (CART) had been activated for a mock child abduction.

"Our goal is to find the child and apprehend the suspect," said Utah CART Commander Jessica Farnsworth. "As this case unfolds, it is going to be just like an activation. We have a child out there who is missing, so we're going to jump right into it."

The mock activation was a test to see if the team conforms to the vision and protocols for national certification. The U.S. Department of Justice started the CART initiative in November 2005.

During the test, actors played the suspect, victim, and witnesses. Members of the media were invited to get a first-hand look at what happens when a child is taken.

"Early this morning, complainant Dan Driver called and reported what he thought was a possible abduction of a small female child," said South Salt Lake City Police Capt. Jack Carruth at the first briefing. "Two more witnesses reported an abduction of a child, and the description matched the first caller."

Helicopters, search dogs, and every resource available to the team were used to help in the search. Utah AMBER Alert Coordinator Paul Murphy sent out flyers, e-mails, and tweets with mock abduction updates, including: "Victim is 13-yr-old, short light curly brown hair" and "Suspect 45-yr-old white male in '01 black Impala 4dr."

Less than 2 hours after the alert was issued, officers found the suspect. "Get out of the car and put your hands up. Do it now!," screamed officers at the actor/suspect. Search dogs quickly picked up the scent of the victim and found her near some trees. Investigators asked the actress/victim what happened. "He took me to this little spot and he said he was going now and not to tell anyone," she said.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff stood next to police chiefs, sheriffs, and CART members and gave this assessment of the drill: "If anyone is thinking of taking a kid in this state, this is going to be the response. No matter where you are in the state, these officers are trained and will work together to find you."

A team of inspectors led by CART Certification Coordinator Floy Turner followed the entire process and recommended that the team be certified. "It is wonderful to see the community come together and wonderful to see law enforcement work together," noted Turner.

On August 5, AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance Program Director Phil Keith declared, on behalf of the Office of Justice Programs, that the Utah CART had earned certification. "Utah has raised the standard for CART and what can be brought to the table when a child is abducted," said Keith.

The Utah CART is the seventh team in the country and the first in the West to receive national certification.

Somer Renee Thompson

Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler

Captain David Senters

Suspect Jarred Harrell

A candlelight vigil for Somer Renee Thompson.

Diena Thompson speaking to the media about her daughter Somer

Diena Thompson, left, speaking to the media.

Seven-year-old Somer Thompson vanished on October 19, 2009, while walking home from school in Orange Park, Florida. She had separated from her twin brother and her sister after an argument. Somer's mother flagged down a passing deputy and reported her daughter was missing.

Clay County, Florida, Sheriff Rick Beseler had never handled a child abduction case and thought the chances it would happen were small. But the sheriff wanted to be ready just in case and during the past four years his deputies attended more than 20 training sessions on the AMBER Alert and missing child investigations. Six months prior to this reported missing child incident his office had a table-top exercise involving a child being abducted while walking home from school.

"It was very fortuitous we did this because we found a lot of problems in our system," said Beseler. "If we did not have the training and the table-top exercise we would have been lost." The exercise helped the sheriff's office develop a better leads tracking system and protocols for searching and canvassing.

The same day Somer went missing, the sheriff set up a command post at the local junior high school. More than 100 law enforcement officers from Clay County, two surrounding counties, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI gathered for the first activation of the newly formed Child Abduction Response Team (CART). After eliminating all possibilities other than abduction, an AMBER Alert was issued at 10:45 a.m. the next day.

The CART had all the needed equipment, protocols and personnel in place immediately. "I had confidence because we had trained and learned from the AMBER Alert Training & Technical Assistance program offered through Fox Valley Technical College what ultimately can happen," said Beseler.

CART members called themselves Team Somer to connect with the family and community. They wore purple bracelets and gold pins with the Team Somer logo and placed a banner at the command post with Somer's picture that read "Remember this is why we are here."

More than 2,000 leads came in during the first 24 hours. Each investigative team had a member from every law enforcement agency to foster teamwork and prevent anyone's ego from getting in the way. "When other agencies come in you have to have trust," said Clay County Sheriff's Captain David Senters. "They have to trust that you aren't going to keep the good leads for yourself. You also have to have a plan and stick to that plan."

The Sheriff's Office had also developed a landfill protocol, and detectives searched every garbage truck. Somer's body was found the following day in a transfer truck 55 miles away in Folkston, Georgia. "If we didn't find the body, we would not have solved the crime," concluded Beseler.

"We would not know anything today. It would be a missing child buried under a thousand tons of garbage in another state."

Another key part of the child recovery plan was to foster good relations with the media and the victim's family. "You always want the family on your side," said Beseler. "We brought the Thompson family into our fold."

Diena Thompson, Somer's mother, issued this statement after her daughter was found: "I don't know how to describe the level of support from the Clay County Sheriff's Office. Deputies and detectives have been by my side and cried with me. The Sheriff has been there for support as well and has spared no expense in the search for Somer and now for the killer."

Just 19 days before the abduction, the Clay County Sheriff's Office had its budget cut by $1.75 million and 30 positions were eliminated. The sheriff had to solicit funds from other agencies and the community donated hundreds of thousands of dollars in goods and services. "I had nothing to pay these guys, and they were working around the clock," said Beseler.

The Sheriff also asked for the public's help to find the killer. A tip line was established so people could call in about anyone who may have made changes in their behavior, appearance or may have left the area unexpectedly. A total of 4,000 leads came in during the next five months including an early tip about Jarred Harrell.

As time passed national news organizations started doing critical stories about the investigation. Investigators were under intense pressure to resolve the case but they did not let it overshadow the need to conduct the investigation properly. On April 12, 2010, five months after Somer went missing, Harrell was arrested for the abduction, sexual assault, and murder of Somer Thompson. Detectives had followed Harrell for weeks and a DNA sample ultimately connected the 24-year-old to the crime.

Sheriff Beseler hopes other law enforcement agencies will learn from the Somer Thompson case about the need for training and having a well-prepared CART. He said a child abduction case will change a department–either for better or worse.

"There is no case that is going to generate the public pressure or the public interest like a missing or abducted child," said Beseler. "The pressure is unlike anything I have felt, and I have been in law enforcement for 36 years. It can be your finest hour, or it can be your worst nightmare. If you are not ready it will swallow you."

Attorney General Eric Holder congratulating a child during Missing Children's Day event — "The extraordinary efforts of the men and women we recognize today have awakened family after family from the nightmare of having a missing child, and, when there can be no solace, helped them to recover from unthinkable loss," said Attorney General Eric Holder, right, with a young Missing Children's Day honoree.

Efforts to find a child who vanished more than three decades ago have turned into an international event to remember all missing children. On May 25, 1979, 6-year-old Etan Patz went missing on his way to school in New York City. The missing boy was the first child whose face appeared on a milk carton and President Ronald Reagan later proclaimed May 25 as National Missing Children's Day. This year (2010), nine countries in addition to the U.S. helped raise awareness for missing children by commemorating International Missing Children's Day, which is also observed on May 25.

The Manhattan District Attorney marked the anniversary by announcing that he will take a fresh look at the Patz case and review evidence collected against a convicted child molester now serving 20 years in a Pennsylvania prison.

Capital Honors

At a special 2010 Missing Children's Day ceremony in Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder honored law enforcement officers and citizens for helping in the recovery of missing children. "The extraordinary efforts of the men and women we recognize today have awakened family after family from the nightmare of having a missing child, and, when there can be no solace, helped them to recover from unthinkable loss," said Holder.

The following individuals were honored at the event:

North Carolina Assistant District Attorney Kelly Miller for helping secure a 115-to-142.5-year prison sentence for a man who was sexually abusing his 8-year-old niece while her mother was deployed to Iraq.
Phoenix FBI Special Agent Michael J. Conrad for assisting in the recovery of an abducted 2-year-old child.
Tombstone, Arizona postal employees James Pantoja, Tony Palma and Denultra Camp for distributing a missing child poster which helped in the safe recovery of a 9-year-old child.
Miami FBI Special Agents Catherine Koontz and James T. Lewis for pursuing child pornography cases and eventually identifying 8 children who had been sexually abused.
Lajas, Puerto Rico fifth grader Billy Joe Reyes Collado for creating the winning poster for the 2010 Missing Children's Day Art Contest.

"Law enforcement officers and prosecutors see the most broken parts of broken lives," said Assistant Attorney General and National AMBER Alert Coordinator Laurie O. Robinson. "But these men and women have managed to channel their shock and outrage into a sense of duty. And because of their actions, these horrible perpetrators have been brought to justice – and young children have been saved – removed from danger."

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) President and CEO Ernie Allen spoke at the event about how companies like Google, Microsoft and others have helped develop technology to stop the exploitation of children. "These fierce competitors agreed to work together with us toward a common goal, eradicating commercial child pornography," said Allen.

The Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs also released two publications at the ceremony: "The Crime of Family Abduction: A Child's and Parent's Perspective," which offers insight into how a child abduction by a family member affects the child and the family, and the fourth edition of "When Your Child is Missing: A Family Survival Guide."

Around the U.S.A.

Here are some highlights on how Missing Children's Day was recognized around the United States:

The direct-mail company Valassis celebrated the 25th anniversary of its "Have you seen me?" program by distributing four-page missing children insert to 44 million households.
A record number of motorcycle riders participated in the Ride for Missing Children in New York. The 443 riders stopped at elementary schools that helped raise money and released balloons to honor a missing student.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike held "Safety-Breaks" at two of its busiest plazas which included presentations on how to prevent abductions and locate missing children.
People were urged to "Take 25" minutes to teach children how to stay safe online in Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, New York and other states.
The Minnesota AMBER Alert Network held a "Dining to Donate" event to raise money and awareness with an event that included free fingerprint ID kits, face painting, McGruff the Crime Dog and the Los Padrinos Lowrider Car Club.
Electronic billboards in Loveland, Colorado displayed more than 100 missing children May 1–25.

Indian Country

Indian Tribes from across the southwest observed Missing Children's Day by learning how to bring missing and abducted children home. Law enforcement officials, child protection advocates and community leaders gathered at the Harrah's Ak-Chin Indian Community Resort in Maricopa, Arizona, May 25. The training session included the latest child protection strategies as well as a traditional blessing and Native dance. On the same day, the Tribal councils for the Ak-Chin, Tohono O'odhom and White Mountain Apache Tribes announced their AMBER Alert resolutions.

Around the World

International Missing Children's Day was commemorated in Australia, Canada, Brazil, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Romania, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The nine countries held events to raise awareness about missing children issues, including:

Brazil hosted a one-day missing children seminar and released balloons.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police unveiled its annual report on missing children, released balloons and honored a law enforcement officer who helped recover a missing child.
The Dutch National Police visited local schools to discuss missing children's issues and released 500 balloons.
The Australian Federal Police created a website where virtual balloons can be released and includes a public service announcement. Visit www.helpbringthemhome.org.au.

The United Kingdom launched the Child Rescue Alert.

"We urge you to join us in spreading the message of hope and help to bring these children home," said Nancy Dube, Executive Vice President and CEO of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children.

Balloons being released in Brazil for International Missing Children's Day — For International Missing Children's Day, Brazil hosted a one-day missing children seminar and released balloons.

Ireland's top law enforcement agency issued a report stating that the country needs to develop an AMBER Alert program. The report from the Garda Inspectorate said the alert system for missing children should include “strict criteria and provisions for international collaboration.”

The report noted that an AMBER Alert would not have been issued in any missing child case in Ireland during the past decade but that an all-island alert system needs to be in place. “The potential to rescue a child from a life-threatening abduction is deserving of priority in all circumstances.”

Dutch police say they are surprised that most parents do not have current photographs of their children. Carlo Schippers of the National Bureau of Missing Persons said parents should always have a recent photo because it is critical when a child goes missing. Schippers helped set up the AMBER Alert program in the Netherlands and said the country's first two alerts were successful because they provided current pictures of the children. However, he noted that some recent missing child cases were hampered because police could not obtain good pictures of the children.

Suspect Larry Jon Ladwig

Sergeant Bryan Chapman

Phoenix police officer speaking at a press conference

A Phoenix police officer speaks during a press conference.

The suspect's pickup truck.

A 5-year-old girl was outside playing with her 7- and 9-year-old sisters in front of their apartment in Phoenix on Christmas afternoon. A man drove up in a brown Ford Ranger pickup and started taking pictures of them. He pulled down the 5-year-old's pants and then threw her into his truck.

The girl was crying and the suspect drove away so fast he hit a parked vehicle while trying to get away. Several witnesses heard the crash and described the vehicle and part of the license plate to police.

The Phoenix Police Department handles as many as 10,000 missing person cases a year, but Sergeant Bryan Chapman knew this was different. “A stranger abduction is very rare, and we got the ball rolling as quickly as possible,” said Chapman. An AMBER Alert was issued at 5:11 p.m.

Every on-call detective from every division was called in and patrol officers joined in the search. “I heard someone say they saw a uniformed officer on every corner,” said Chapman. “It's amazing the kind of response you get when a child is abducted.”

But Chapman was getting worried. Minutes were ticking by and few leads were coming in. “My heart and my concern were for this little girl,” he said. “There's an immense amount of responsibility to make sure all the pieces fall together. It became a real struggle to remain positive.”

Five hours after the alert went out, K-9 Officer Mike Burns spotted the suspect's truck, but he would not pull over. “I've got a brown Ford Ranger pickup with a male and possibly a small child in the front refusing to yield,” said Officer Burns on his police radio.

Burns began a high-speed chase of the suspect and started broadcasting his every move on the police radio. “He's coming right past you. Don't turn in front of me ... speeds about 70 miles per hour.”

Police finally caught 45-year-old Larry Jon Ladwig after he ran over some spike strips and crashed his truck. Ladwig fled on foot and punched an officer during a brief struggle before he was arrested.

Chapman and every law enforcement officer in the area were listening to the police radio. “We're screaming ‘Where's the girl?’ We finally settled down after we heard the girl was in the truck, and she was alive. It was the best gift anyone could have on Christmas.”

Chapman was surprised the suspect was still in the area and in the same vehicle. He believes Ladwig removed the license plate from the truck because the plate number had been included in the AMBER Alert. Ladwig was charged with numerous crimes including aggravated assault, kidnapping, and molestation of a child. He had been on parole after being released from prison in July.

Chapman sits on the Arizona AMBER Alert Oversight Committee, and he said he learned a lot from this AMBER Alert. He is streamlining the protocol so the alerts will go out more quickly.

“We are big fans of the AMBER Alert,” noted Chapman. “We want it to work smoother, better, and be more understandable.”

The Arizona AMBER Alert Oversight Committee presented Officer Burns with a letter of commendation for his efforts to find the girl. “We often talk about the service performed by the men and women protecting our communities but seldom have an example as vivid and dramatic as the job you performed on Christmas Day,” wrote Arizona State AMBER Alert Coordinator Art Brooks. “We are proud of you and offer our gratitude and that of the community to you for your courage and quick thinking that did, indeed, result in a Christmas miracle.”

Parents in three states are facing charges for allegedly lying to police so AMBER Alerts would be issued. A Flint, Michigan, father told police his 7-month-old son was inside his car when it was stolen so they would issue an AMBER Alert; police issued the alert but later learned that the child was safe at home, and the father said he made the report so the police would do more to recover his car. A Charlotte, North Carolina, dad told authorities his 4-year-old girl was in the back seat of his car when it was stolen; he finally admitted there was not a carjacking and he was charged with filing a false police report. A Jonesboro, Georgia, mother was charged with filing a false police report for telling police her 1-year-old daughter had been abducted; the woman told police her ex-boyfriend had abducted the child but police later found out the man had been granted custody of the girl.

Photo of Maine's AMBER Alert Coordinator, Lieutenant Brian McDonough, shown working an investigation.

Maine's AMBER Alert Coordinator, Lieutenant Brian McDonough, shown during an investigation.

Abducted child Hailey Traynham, right, with her mother at a press conference.

Abducted child Hailey Traynham shown with her mother at a press conference.

Suspect Gary Traynham

For seven years Maine had an AMBER Alert plan that had never been used. Everything changed on November 9, 2009, when a 2-year-old girl was abducted after a violent attack on the child's mother in Sanford, Maine.

Lt. Brian McDonough, Maine's AMBER Alert Coordinator and Missing Persons Clearinghouse Director, had the day off and was riding his motorcycle when he got the call. McDonough worried initially how people would react.

“All my apprehension went away because it was working,” said McDonough. “The media outlets embraced it. Everyone was excited about Maine's first AMBER Alert.”

According to the police affidavit, 38-year-old Gary Traynham broke into his former girlfriend's apartment and then strangled and assaulted her when she got home. The victim attempted to call 911 and Traynham took their 2-year-old daughter and left in a green Dodge pickup truck.

Sanford police initially thought they would find the suspect quickly using a BOLO alert because he lived in the area. They also debated whether the case met the criteria for an AMBER Alert because the suspect's parental rights had not been severed. After confirming all the facts, McDonough gave approval for the AMBER Alert to be activated.

“I was very concerned that this child was going to be killed,” said McDonough. “We knew it was a risk worth taking.”

McDonough also supervises the Southern Division for Major Crimes. He was given the additional duty of AMBER Alert Coordinator after he mentioned that every AMBER Alert is potentially a “homicide in progress.” McDonough learned quickly that back-up plans are needed for AMBER Alerts. The software for the Emergency Alert System had a glitch so the media received the alerts by e-mail and transportation officials were notified by phone. “There were a few problems but overall, the alert got out very well,” said McDonough.

Police began tracking the suspect's cell phone and determined he could be heading to Vermont or New Hampshire. Both states issued their own alerts and started blanketing the area with officers.

The following day Mike Grant Jr. was hunting with a muzzle loader near a dirt road in Milton, New Hampshire. Grant recognized the suspect's truck and remembered the license plate number from the AMBER Alert. The hunter approached the suspect and convinced him to turn himself in. “This hunter was a hero,” said McDonough. “It was a good thing it was hunting season.”

Law enforcement officers and broadcasters met to review Maine's first AMBER Alert to see what worked well and what can be done better. McDonough said all the training he has received helped for his first AMBER Alert but there is nothing like experiencing it firsthand. “I don't regret it at all,” added McDonough. “It was successful and the right decisions were made.”

The pilot program to bring AMBER Alerts into Indian Country has taken wings. The AMBER Alert in Indian Country initiative began with ten Tribal sites but now other Tribes are getting training in order to create their own child abduction alert plans.

For the first time the 2009 National AMBER Alert Symposium provided training sessions for Tribal representatives who are not part of the pilot program.

“It is quite remarkable that the Tribes are so far ahead of so many states considering they had to start their programs from scratch,” noted AMBER Alert in Indian Country Liaison Jim Walters.

The goal for the pilot sites is to have a working AMBER Alert program by July 2010. Some of the tribes reported that they were running into roadblocks with their plans because of political interference or lack of support from Tribal leaders. Walters said educating the public about AMBER Alerts will help. “If the people speak loudly enough that they want a program, the political desire will follow.”

Tribal leaders are also taking an active role in the Southern Border Initiative because many of the Tribal lands are on the U.S.-Mexico border. More training will be held to create lines of communication between Tribal and Mexican law enforcement officials.

The Native American representatives also tackled the issue of runaway and “thrownaway” children. Approximately 40,000 runaways and thrownaways, mostly girls, come from Indian communities each year.

Native American children typically leave their homes for urban areas and are not accustomed to the cultural differences. Jurisdiction issues also present challenges in trying to protect children.

Some of the Indian communities have developed multidisciplinary teams to prevent and intervene in child abductions and to recover children. The teams include representatives from law enforcement, social services, schools, judges, and Tribal elders. Many of the children have been helped because of the Indian culture's strong belief in family relationships and extended families.

In the entertainment world, a triple-threat is someone who can sing, dance and act. In the world of protecting children, Margie Quin is a triple threat. She is Tennessee's AMBER Alert Coordinator, Child Abduction Response Team Commander and Missing Person's Clearinghouse Director.

“I can't imagine you would ever get tired of searching for missing children,” said Quin. “If you can't devote all of your efforts to the search for a missing child you need a new line of work.”

The Reluctant Coordinator

Quin was recognized as the 2009 AMBER Alert Coordinator of the Year for her passion for finding children. However, she was a bit reluctant to become the state coordinator two years earlier because she had spent the past 18 years as a “door kicking” kind of police officer. Quin was assigned because of her expertise tracking suspects' cell phones during AMBER Alerts, a skill she picked up as a narcotics agent.

“I was excited, but it was a little intimidating because the stakes are so high,” said Quin. “The program was running successfully in Tennessee, but I'm not interested in the status quo and so I saw what I could do to make it better.”

Quin saw the CART program as a natural way to improve the AMBER Alert program. She started the first CART for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) and oversaw a mock child abduction scenario so the team could receive certification. Quin also heads the TBI Top 10 Most Wanted and Gang Intelligence programs and supervises agents assigned to the FBI Terrorism Task Force.

“We've had gang bangers take children at gunpoint, and we've had children taken from some of the domestic extremists. You wouldn't think all these programs would come together but they do,” said Quin.

Motivation

A Will Rogers quote spurs Quin to do even more: “Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you don't move.” Quin added, “That's my philosophy … while the AMBER Alert is the right track, CART is an effort to keep moving.”

Quin has been responsible for the safe recovery of more than 22 children and has helped in the recovery of missing children from other states who were believed to have come into Tennessee.

The AMBER Alert that stands out most for Quin happened before she was a coordinator. A woman shot and killed her husband and took off with their three children. Quin tracked the suspect's cell phone for 18 hours before the woman finally turned on her phone for three minutes to check voice mails. Authorities arrested the woman and recovered the children within minutes.

“You recover a child from an AMBER Alert, and you have saved a child's life,” said Quin. “Nothing is better than that. I've tracked and apprehended bank robbers and murderers, and nothing compares to saving a child.”

For the Love of Children

TBI Fusion Center Supervisor Jerri Powell nominated Quin for the 2009 award because of her impressive record but also for something hard to quantify. “What is not so easy to explain in writing is Quin's deep love for children, especially children in peril,” wrote Powell.

Quin would like to use technology to help children in peril. She wants to push out the alerts quicker and plans to provide online training for AMBER Alert, CART and missing children cases. She also wants other officers to share her concern for missing children.

“Children's issues are the most underfunded and under publicized in my mind,” said Quin. “Police departments spend more time looking for stolen weed eaters instead of missing children.”

Despite all the responsibilities, Quin still finds time at home to read, follow sports and spend time with her husband and three-year-old Josie, their adopted daughter from Guatemala. Quin said she would love to figure out a way to put a “LoJack” tracking device on Josie.

Quin described the conversation she has with her daughter whenever she leaves for work. “Where are you going, mama?” Josie will ask. “I'm going out to help children,” Quin will answer. “OK,” Josie responds. You get the sense from Quin that Josie's word of approval means more than any award.

A false AMBER Alert text message circulated around the country in July 2009 and then resurfaced again in September on text and Twitter. The message claims a 3-year-old girl was taken by a man in a silver truck. People reported receiving the alerts in South Dakota, Michigan, and Texas. The message reappeared later in California, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, and parts of Canada. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received no AMBER Alert with the information contained in the text. Sioux Falls resident Jennifer McNamara told a reporter she was skeptical. “I know what an alert looks like, and I hadn't received one,” said McNamara.

Photo of Dave Gamache talking with a journalist. — Lieutenant Dave Gamache speaks with a journalist about the case.

A late-night party turned into a nightmare for parents living in the small Northern California town of Yreka. On March 2, 2009, a stranger stopped by the party at the parent's home and later fled with their 3-year-old girl.

The victim's father heard his daughter's screams at 4:30 a.m. and saw the man leave in a 1992 Pontiac Grand Am.

Yreka Police Department's Lieutanant Dave Gamache was contacted, and an AMBER Alert was issued at 6:53 a.m. for 22-year-old Kody Lee Kaplon and a small brown-haired girl wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt.

“It was unbelievable” said Gamache. “I had no idea the AMBER Alert was so simple to use and would be so widespread in such a short period of time. Within 30 minutes after issuing the alert, I was up to my eyeballs with phone calls ringing off the hook. It worked seamlessly.”

Since Yreka is close to the Oregon and Nevada borders, the California Highway Patrol asked both states to also issue alerts. The Yreka Police Department had never handled a stranger abduction case, and this was the agency’s first AMBER Alert.

“The thing that sticks out in my mind is that we deal with bigger agencies with a lot of resources and this was a small agency and they did an amazing job handling everything that was going on,” said Captain LD Maples, California AMBER Alert Coordinator.

Ironically, Gamache said his agency had just signed up to take AMBER Alert training the following month. “We have everything but not very much of it,” he said. “I was not going to let pride get in the way of asking for help to find this girl.”

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children also called to offer help and immediately sent two agents from Team Adam.

“The AMBER Alert went very smoothly. Everything happened by the book,” said Adrienne Abbott, Nevada Chair for the Emergency Alert System. “The California Highway Patrol, Nevada Highway Patrol, and the Yreka Police department were constantly in communication.”

The AMBER Alert was working as planned but a 3-year-old girl was still missing. Temperatures were dropping, snow was falling and authorities knew they were running out of time to save the girl.

Mugshot of suspect Kody Lee Kaplan (male) — Suspect Kody Lee Kaplon

At 2 p.m., the suspect called a designated AMBER Alert phone line to ask police why they were looking for him. Yreka had recently set up a phone bank for natural disasters and officers asked an animal control officer, a secretary, and others to handle all the calls for the alert.

At about the same time, a Yreka officer ran into people panning for gold in the search area and they offered to drop their pans and start looking for the girl. The volunteer searchers took a 4-wheel-drive vehicle and followed car tracks on a remote dirt road. They found the suspect's abandoned vehicle and discovered the girl hiding in some bushes at 3:21 p.m.

The alert was cancelled three minutes later and Kaplon surrendered to police. The girl told police that the suspect had buried her in the mud and left her, but she was able to dig herself out.

“The recovery was the direct result of the AMBER Alert,” said Abbott, and then he asked, “Isn't that the point of the AMBER Alert? You're always thankful when the child is recovered alive. As a parent what else can I say?”

Kaplon is now charged with kidnapping, sexual abuse and cruelty to a child, burglary, and attempted murder.

An AMBER Alert, the response of ordinary citizens and a small police department that was not afraid to ask for help, changed what could have been a tragedy into a miracle.

“There were so many pieces of the puzzle I hate to think what would have happened if one of the pieces would have been missing,” concluded Gamache. “I probably will never have another case that makes me feel so good that everything worked.”

Photo of Dale Zabriskie (man wearing glasses) — Dale Zabriskie

Utah Broadcasters Association President Dale Zabriskie says a very persistent Oklahoman helped bring the AMBER Alert to Utah and many other states as well. Carl Smith was the president of the Oklahoma Broadcasters Association and set up the nation's first statewide AMBER Alert Plan. Zabriskie said he remembers Smith pitching the AMBER Alert plan every time he met with his broadcasting colleagues. He said he finally took on the project to get Smith off his back and because it was such a good idea.

“I think it is definitely a noble cause to bring missing and abducted children back to their parents unharmed,” said Zabriskie. “We thought obviously this is something we can do in Utah, but we realized we couldn't do it by ourselves.”

Utah's AMBER Alert Plan was born on April 2, 2002, after a few meetings between Zabriskie and representatives from Utah's Attorney General's Office, Police Chiefs Association, Department of Public Safety Utah and the primary provider for the state's Emergency Alert System.

“It's a perfect win-win situation with police needing help in that type of situation, parents are frantic for whatever help that can be provided and you have this tool from broadcasters that can help,” said Zabriskie. “It just had to be organized with the right information to spread the word.”

Zabriskie has been spreading the word about AMBER Alerts ever since. He has attended every national and regional conference since the National AMBER Alert Initiative began in 2003.

“We know the AMBER Alert works because the way people respond to it,” said Zabriskie. “They hear it and they bring the child home.”

Surprisingly, the long-time broadcaster's career began at a newspaper. Zabriskie was still in college when he started as a sportswriter and then a city desk reporter. He went on to work in public relations and was eventually hired as a lobbyist for broadcasters. In 1985 he became the Executive Director of the Utah Broadcasters Association.

Zabriskie believes broadcasters need to be strong partners and said it is vital for them to participate in after-action reviews of each alert. “This is a great way for broadcasters to feel they have a role in the plan, and it feeds their enthusiasm for the AMBER Alerts,” said Zabriskie.

Broadcasters have also been enlisted by Zabriskie to promote the AMBER Alert plans in other ways, including: the Utah Fox-TV affiliate provided all of the production for a state AMBER Alert training DVD; the Utah NBC-TV affiliate produced a radio and TV public service announcement for AMBER Alerts that was designed to air in every state; every radio and TV station in Utah has a break room poster that includes a checklist for what a broadcaster should do during an AMBER Alert and an Endangered Person Advisory; and the Utah Broadcasters Association has sponsored and provided meals and materials for several statewide training sessions for broadcasters and law enforcement public information officers.

“I'm proud of how we have been innovative,” said Zabriskie. “I remember saying (A): No two states will have the same AMBER Alert system and (B): it will always be a work in progress.” He said he is grateful Utah did not involve any legislation for its AMBER Alert plan so changes could be made quickly and without any changes in the law.

In his spare time, Zabriskie likes to watch sports, spend time at his cabin and read novels and books about history. He is proud his daughter, Michele, is taking a bigger role in the child abduction alert plan by participating on the Utah AMBER Alert Advisory Committee. Zabriskie said he is counting on others to keep the momentum going. “The challenge would be to continue to respond the way we have and not become complacent.”

It began with an ambush of a family as they were coming home from church in West Columbia, South Carolina. David Allen Dietz and an unidentified accomplice allegedly ordered his ex-girlfriend, and their 7-month-old son to get into his silver Ford Explorer.

Dietz allegedly fired shots as he sped away with Eva Arce Perez, and their son, Allim Dietz. South Carolina issued an AMBER Alert at 12:46 a.m. on Jan. 4, 2009, in a desperate attempt to recover the infant and his mother.

“It was just so tense,” said Glenda Booth, South Carolina's AMBER Alert Coordinator for the past four years. “This was a very frightening AMBER Alert. I really thought we were going to lose our victims.”

Dietz was a former law enforcement officer with a history of aggression. On the night of the abduction, he was wearing a black T-shirt with the word “Police” on the sleeves and on the back of the shirt.

A small army of federal, state and local law enforcement officers quickly gathered at the command center. “Everyone was working on it together,” said Booth. “It was a huge effort, and it was going non-stop from Saturday night until Monday morning.”

South Carolina AMBER Alert Coordinator Glenda Booth

Near the beginning of the ordeal Booth called Lamar Advertising to see if the company could post an AMBER Alert on its electronic signs. The company offered to post the alerts on the signs for the next three hours. “Those types of partners are invaluable,” said Booth.

A break came when a citizen saw the AMBER Alert and recognized the suspect as someone she had seen with Jamie Burgess, a 17-year-old runaway. Law enforcement confirmed that Burgess was with Dietz during the abduction.

“We made the decision to list Burgess as a victim because law enforcement did not have enough information to charge her as an accomplice,” said Booth. Her database screens only have fields for a “victim” or a “suspect” but now a field is being considered for a “person of interest.”

Another break occurred when the female victim borrowed a phone and called her mother. Investigators traced the call to Madison, Georgia. South Carolina cancelled its alert, and an AMBER Alert was activated in Georgia.

A police officer located the suspect's vehicle and law enforcement officers surrounded a hotel for the next 13 hours until a negotiator convinced Dietz to give up. “I'm just so thankful the mother and child are safe,” said a relieved Booth.

Looking back, Booth said they experienced a few problems with their IT and blast fax, plus questions about listing the accomplice. But the AMBER Alert still went out through the Emergency Alert System, National Weather Service and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

South Carolina will start testing their plan monthly to correct any possible problems, but Booth is pleased that once again the AMBER Alert worked. The public was notified, law enforcement received tips and a small baby and his mother are miraculously safe.

AMBER Alert Fact: More than $1.5 billion dollars in federal stimulus money has been earmarked for innovative road projects. Some states plan to use the money to install more electronic signs that can warn drivers about accidents and inform them about AMBER Alerts.

New York AMBER Alert Coordinator Gary Kelly knows what is at stake when a child is abducted. Before taking the AMBER Alert position he spent years investigating child abuse and kidnapping cases for the New York State Police.

“I know firsthand the violence that can happen in homes and kids are vulnerable,” said Kelly. He said that experience drives him to make sure New York's AMBER Alert Plan works. “The AMBER Alert is designed to save and rescue kids.”

Kelly is trying to use technology to make AMBER Alerts even more effective. New York now uses license plate readers and commercial electronic signs during AMBER Alerts. Soon the alerts will be broadcast on TV screens in all 13,000 taxi cabs in New York City.

“Between 400,000 and 600,000 people a day would see the alerts,” said Kelly. “That would be huge to have all those eyes and ears looking for a child.”

AMBER Alerts will also become part of New York's All Hazard and Emergency Alert notification system. The new computer system will greatly simplify activations. “We have up to five steps to activate and this will take it down to two steps,” said Kelly. “We're really excited about this.”

Kelly recently organized a webcast to help train broadcasters on the AMBER Alert. The nearly hour-long training was put together quickly. A small group of people created an outline, modified previous power point presentations and then went to a public television station studio and simply started talking.

“All our primary AMBER partners were invited to attend,” said Kelly. “The State Broadcasters Association got the ball rolling.” Viewers were able to email questions during the webcast, and the broadcast was recorded in case anyone missed it.

Now Kelly is planning a webcast for law enforcement. This program will be divided into five-minute segments so officers can view each segment during roll calls. All New York law enforcement officers have already received patrol cards containing the criteria and needed information to issue an AMBER Alert.

All the innovation, Kelly said, is driven by the commitment of the State AMBER Alert Committee. He said committee members meet in person with the activating law enforcement agency after each alert. New York has had 24 AMBER Alert activations for 29 children since the plan started in 2002.

“This is a team effort in New York. It's not a one-person show by any means,” said Kelly. “Everyone on this committee is passionate about what they do. That helps me.”

Does Kelly take his job as AMBER Alert coordinator personally? “Definitely,” he answered. He said that is because he is the father of a 9-year-old girl and an infant son. Kelly is even the soccer coach and the “Girl Scout Cookie” dad for his daughter.

His only regret is that he cannot devote more time to the AMBER Alert plan. “I've been pushing for this to be a full-time position,” said Kelly. “I don't think we are doing enough.”

When an AMBER Alert is issued in Winnipeg more than 1,000 real estate agents will get the message. The realtors in Manitoba registered to receive their alerts on their cell phones and pagers. “The more people we can get the message out to as quickly as possible, the more success we're going to have,” said Winnipeg Police Chief Keith McCaskill. The agents receive the alerts through TouchBase, a database that is usually used by realtors to schedule home showings and to communicate with each other. The Realtors Association also agreed to use their billboard to publicize information about missing children.

From Dispatch to the Clearinghouse

A Special Kind of Person

Correcting the Record on AMBER Alerts

A Case That Reshaped Her Approach

Staying in the Work

Key Findings

Sources

Key Findings

Sources

Inside Missouri State Highway Patrol Troop F's AMBER Alert Leadership Team

Capt. Jason N. Crites, Badge #32

Missouri Statewide AMBER Alert Coordinator & Troop F Commander

Lt. Joseph D. Davidson, Badge #66

District 4 Operations Director

Lt. Chris S. Daniels, Badge #55

District Lieutenant & Public Order Unit Assistant Platoon Leader

Lt. James E. Lowary, Badge #91

District Lieutenant & Public Order Unit Coordinator

Lt. Casey Utterback, Badge #103

District I Commander & Assistant Patrol ALERT Coordinator

Lt. Morgan B. Patterson, Badge #88

Administrative Services Director & Assistant Troop F SWAT Director

Six Paths, One Clock

A Timeline

The article includes these highlights:

Recognition and collaboration for better understanding—and a clear path forward

Commemoration highlights

Looking back—and ahead

Wetterling to DOJ & NCMEC: ‘You Save Lives. You Saved Mine.’

Biggest Activation Ever

California

Nevada

Oregon

Washington

Idaho

Relief All Around

Utah Child Abduction Response Team Faces Real Challenges During Mock Abduction

What's on the National AMBER Alert Facebook page:

What's on the State AMBER Alert Facebook pages:

Capital Honors

Around the U.S.A.

Indian Country

Around the World

The Reluctant Coordinator

Motivation

For the Love of Children