Wednesday, February 16, 2000
Child alerts take to airwaves
Missing kids on radio, TV
BY JANE PRENDERGAST
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Amber
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COVINGTON — The next time a Tristate child comes up missing, anyone listening to the radio or watching TV will know it — quick.
Tristate police and media outlets today will announce a new cooperative effort aimed at putting the public to work for them to find children. The Amber Plan, named for a girl kidnapped in Texas, sends notices about crucial cases over the same TV and radio stations that alert people to bad weather.
The idea: Reach as many sets of eyes and ears as fast as possible. Statistics show that 75 percent of kidnapped and slain children are killed within three hours of the time they disappeared, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
“You can imagine how far an abductor can get with a small child in a couple of hours,” said Cincinnati Sgt. Dave Wuest, a personal crimes officer who helped coordinate his city's involvement in the program.
The plan, like similar ones in Kansas City, Memphis and Houston, is named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl from Arlington, Texas, who was kidnapped in January 1996. She was later found dead. Her killer has not been found.
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TIPS FOR PARENTS
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• Have children call home when they go to a friend's house.
• Walk children to where they will be playing.
• Get to know neighbors, and take notice of outsiders.
• Have neighbors take turns watching one another's kids.
For information about missing children, call the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, (800) THE-LOST or go online at www.missingkids.com.
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In the aftermath of her disappearance, a radio listener in the area called a station and suggested DJs get involved in helping find missing kids. That idea evolved into the plan now heralded nationally.
In Cincinnati, stations will receive an immediate, automatic notification from area police agencies. It will be up to each station how to relay the alert to viewers, whether by a crawler across the screen, an announcement or other means.
Texas' Amber plan has been activated 27 times since its beginning in July 1997. Five or six of those times resulted in the return of the child, said Steve Mace, a spokesman for the Texas plan. In one case, a kidnapper set a child free along a highway after hearing a description of his truck on the radio.
“Every one of these partners that are involved should be applauded for what they are doing for kids,” said Pete Banks, director of training and
outreach for the national missing-child agency. “This is a big deal.”
He particularly singled out the Greater Cincinnati effort because it involves so many law-enforcement agencies working together. Police chiefs from many area departments are expected at the press conference this morning.
Every city's criteria for invoking the Amber Plan may be different, but those from the original Texas plan require that the child be 15 or younger or have a proven mental or physical disability. Police there also must think the child is in danger of serious bodily harm or death.
More than 860,000 children were reported missing last year in the United States, Mr. Banks said. Most of them were determined to be runaways or abducted in custody situations. About 5,000 were kidnappings by strangers, he said, with 4,700 of those returned to their families within 24 hours.
Scott Diener, news director for WCPO-TV (Channel 9), said the station was glad to participate.
“That's what we're here for,” he said. “If it takes 30 seconds or a minute out of General Hospital, then I'll defend that. I think it's that important.”
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