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Missing Children, Part 5

Amber Plan: Abductions Trigger Public Alert

By Kevin Canfield
Originally published in The Hartford Courant, April 15, 2001
Part 5 of 5

You’re watching TV or driving in your car and your favorite show or song is interrupted by a shrill tone.

This isn’t another warning about bad weather, though. It’s the latest investigative tool being used by police all over the country to track down abducted children, and it could be in place in Connecticut soon.

The so-called Amber Plan is designed to alert communities within minutes of a child’s abduction. State police say they are eager to bring the system here.

“I see us jumping on board,” state police spokesman Sgt. J. Paul Vance said. “It certainly is another area where law enforcement and the media can work together for the betterment of the children in the state.”

The system works like this: Police, upon receiving a report of an abducted child, notify two area radio stations that have volunteered to spread the word to other radio and TV stations. Within minutes, a tone similar to the one sounded for weather emergencies is broadcast throughout the area. The tone is followed by information about the child who has been abducted and the child’s possible whereabouts.

Vance said state police are reviewing the system and plan to submit a proposal to state police Commissioner Arthur Spada on how it would work here.

The Amber Plan is named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl from Arlington, Texas, who was abducted on Jan. 13, 1996. She was found slain four days later; her killer has never been caught. The crime was the talk of Arlington, and when a listener phoned a local radio station to suggest that broadcasters alert the community as soon as possible after a child has been snatched, it fundamentally changed the way authorities across the nation deal with abductions.

“Everyone sits around and whacks ourselves in the head and wonders why we didn’t do it before,” said Dee Anderson, an Arlington police officer who helped establish the program.

The system has been credited with helping to save at least eight children. Communities in 12 states from Arizona to South Carolina have adopted the plan. No states in this part of the country have an Amber Plan in place, but police, child advocates and some members of Congress are trying to change that.

In October, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a resolution urging communities across the country to put similar systems in place.

“We want to bring it to the Northeast,” said Joann Donnellan, a spokeswoman for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Sgt. Patrick Gaffney of the state police Central District Major Crime Squad said he thinks the system would work well in Connecticut, a small state with significant overlap of radio and television signals.

“Within minutes, every TV and radio station would have it,” Gaffney said.

Perhaps the only drawback is the potential for overusing the alert and causing people to tune it out. Dallas-Fort Worth area police activated the system six times within five weeks last year, causing radio station managers to complain.

In response, police reissued their guidelines for use of the alert and formed an oversight committee. In Arlington, the alert is sounded only for children police believe were abducted.

“If we’d have had this plan in place when Amber was abducted, I feel we’d have had a good chance of finding her,” Anderson said.