THE Amber Alert system has been in use for more than two decades and is instrumental for finding missing children.
Amber Alerts are utilized in all 50 states.
What is an Amber Alert?
An Amber Alert is a message delivered by an alert system that asks the public for help in finding missing children.
It launched in 1996 when Dallas-Fort Worth broadcasters teamed with local police to develop an early warning system.
There are guidelines for Amber Alerts, including a required “reasonable belief by law enforcement that an abduction has occurred.”
Authorities must also believe the child is in “imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death.”
Enough descriptive information of the child must be provided to the public in order for the alert to be useful.
The missing child must be 17 or younger.
Who is the Amber Alert named after?
Amber stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response, but was named in honor of Amber Hagerman, who was just nine when she was kidnapped and murdered in Texas in 1996.
Amber was riding her bike in Arlington when she was abducted.
The little girl’s murder remains unsolved.
“It’s a shame my daughter had to be butchered and had to go through what she went through for us to have the Amber Alert, but I know she would be proud of it,” mother Donna Williams told Yahoo! News in 2016.
Detective Ben Lopez of the Arlington Police Department told NBC News in 2016 that “it’s been extremely frustrating for it to go on this long and not have it solved.”
“We have other cold cases and they’re all frustrating, we want to solve them all, but 20 years is a long time.
“It’s frustrating not to be able to give the mom and the family an answer.”
Authorities have received thousands of tips over the last 24 years.
How do I get Amber Alerts on my phone?
Go to “settings” and then “notifications” on your mobile phone.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen where you will see options under “government alerts.”
Amber Alerts will be one of the options, along with Emergency Alerts and Public Safety Alerts.
Which other countries use an Amber Alert system?
The system is used in Canada and in about 20 European nations.
Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom are among the countries that use the system.