Latest news with #AMBERAlerts
Global News
20-05-2025
- Global News
B.C. RCMP working on Amber Alert-style system for adults
A Chilliwack mother whose daughter went missing in 2021 says the B.C. government and RCMP's E Division has told her it is working on developing a public assistance alert system for adults. Alina Durham's daughter, Shaelene Keeler Bell, went missing in 2021. Her body was found in the Fraser River more than four months later. Durham said she reached out to Garry Begg, the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, about developing a missing adult alert system and he asked her to send his office a proposal. 'My proposal was that we take the AMBER Alert that's already in place and we change a wording in it so that it says victim,' Durham said. 'So that would apply to children who are abducted or in imminent danger or an adult who could be abducted or in imminent danger.' Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "So that would apply to children who are abducted or in imminent danger or an adult who could be abducted or in imminent danger." Story continues below advertisement She said she received a response on May 12 asking her to reach out to B.C.'s RCMP missing person's division and now something is in the works. 'Basically at the end of the day I'd like to see the Canada Alert Ready system used,' Durham added. 2:12 Tragic ending for missing B.C. seniors prompts renewed calls for Silver Alert system Sam Noh, whose father Shin Noh went missing in September 2013 and never returned, has been an advocate for the creation of a 'Silver Alert' system that would notify communities to the disappearance of a senior, particularly one with dementia. He co-founded the group, BC Silver Alert. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy However, there has never been any official alert system in place, other than AMBER Alerts, which are for children who are believed to have been abducted. The BC NDP promised to develop a Silver Alert system when it formed government in 2020, commanding then Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth to oversee its development in his 2020 mandate letter. Story continues below advertisement However, a system has still not been put in place. In the letter to Durham, it stated that RCMP's Missing Persons Centre is 'actively working' on the development of a public assistance alert system in the province. 'This initiative is focused on adults or children who go missing and may be vulnerable due to cognitive impairment or other health-related concerns,' the letter stated. 'It's a major step forward in enhancing our response to these cases, and your support reinforces the importance of this work.' Durham said she is happy she received a response. 'I would like to see everybody included,' Durham said. 'I get tired of the segregating and the making more of what it really is, right? 'You know, at the end of the day, it's a safety measure and it's peace of mind for families, like myself, when my daughter went missing.' Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "You know, at the end of the day, it's a safety measure and it's peace of mind for families, like myself, when my daughter went missing." She said her daughter, who was 23 years old, had never gone missing before and Durham would have liked an alert to have been issued in that case, especially if the circumstances around the missing person were suspicious or out of character. 'It keeps our community safe, we all work together, it takes a village,' Durham said. Story continues below advertisement 'When I got my letter back, I was very, very happy because we have to start somewhere, and it's a start. And so if we even start with this alert, right, for adults and seniors and adults with some cognitive issues, it's start.
NZ Herald
13-05-2025
- General
- NZ Herald
Auckland Writers Festival special: Jacqueline Bublitz's Leave the Girls Behind extract
RUTH-ANN BAKER IS HAVING AN UNREMARKABLE DAY. For the twenty-six-year-old New Yorker, unremarkable looks something like this . . . She gets out of bed before 10 am. She does not worry excessively about her dog, Ressler, dying (she just worries a small, helpful amount). She does a quick tidy-up of her apartment and eats the right food at the right times. A bagel for breakfast, a salad sandwich for lunch. She drinks three coffees, none of which make her overly jittery, and she does not grab at her stomach when looking in the mirror, nor hate any part of her body excessively. She completes the requisite amount of steps for herself and for Ressler, and she does her breathing exercises. Talks briefly to her Uncle Joe on the phone. Ignores a call from her mother, and communicates with her father exclusively through emojis. She watches a half-hour documentary on climate change at 5 pm, and times her wallowing after. Ten minutes to worry about the state of the world, and then she puts her hair up in a messy bun and gets ready for work. The walk to Sweeney's Bar will take her ten minutes, the way it always does. Meaning she'll be right on time for her shift, the way she always is. There is nothing remarkable about her day at all, no cause for concern. Until. Her cell phone begins to beep loudly, just as she drops it into her bag. Living in Manhattan, Ruth is used to wailing sirens, to honking horns and sudden booms that make you jump, but the noise emanating from the bottom of her satchel has a different tone; there's an insistent, high-pitched urgency to it. She scrambles to retrieve the phone, her fingers brushing over the tiny stun gun disguised as lipstick and the can of deodorant that's really mace, until she finds it, just as the beeping stops. And now she understands why that sound seemed to reverberate all around her. She has been sent an automated emergency alert, one that would have echoed throughout the city and beyond. Leave The Girls Behind by Jacqueline Bublitz. Ruth feels her stomach drop. It's a notification about a child abduction. She knows that AMBER Alerts can be sent directly to cell phones these days, but it's still a shock to receive one right here in her apartment. Taking a deep breath, she reads over the truncated details, each line causing a little earthquake that makes her hand — and the phone — shake. AMBER ALERT Hoben, CT VEH DrkBlu Van CHILD 7F 4ft 45lb SUSPECT White M 30–40 yrs CHECK MEDIA Less than ninety characters of information, but Ruth can see through the gaps. A little girl has been taken from the town of Hoben, Connecticut, by a man with few identifiers, outside of the blue van he was driving— possibly across state lines, given the alert has been sent as far as New York City. A child has gone missing. An adult male has driven her away. Ruth tries not to think about what that man did next. Or the town he took the little girl from. Where so much has already been lost. 'It's a real one tonight, Nancy Drew!' Owen Alvin greets Ruth with his favourite nickname for her, and the feverish glee that comes from finding his little bar improbably busy for a Monday. Most nights, Sweeney's— full name Sweeney Todd's Sports Bar— attracts a small, dedicated crowd, who come for the endless loop of Stephen Sondheim soundtracks and/or the latest playoffs screened on the three muted television sets mounted on the back wall. But tonight, Ruth's workplace is packed with patrons, most of their faces unfamiliar to her. Sweeney's must have featured in another one of those 'Secret places only New Yorkers know about' articles, she thinks with a grimace, as she joins her boss behind the bar. Owen appears to mistake her expression for a smile, as he beams at her. 'Let's do this!' he half-shouts over a cranked-up version of 'Losing My Mind' from the last Broadway revival of Follies. Accurate, Ruth thinks dourly. Her mind is somewhere else entirely. CHECK MEDIA, the AMBER Alert had said. Even as she read this, back at her apartment, Ruth knew she had to resist. When it comes to missing girls, she's made a promise not to check media, and she has every intention of keeping her word. But that doesn't stop her thoughts from returning, over and over, to the little girl. To that town. Old, familiar fault lines have started to quiver under Ruth's skin, and it's only loyalty to Owen that keeps her from faking a migraine, and asking to go home. She wouldn't do that to him on a busy night like this. Jacqueline Bublitz is appearing at the 2025 Auckland Writers Festival. Her latest book is Leave The Girls Behind. This tiny neighbourhood bar has been her sanctuary for five years now, ever since Owen hired her as a favour to her Uncle Joe. Back in 2010, Ruth was a twenty-one-year-old college dropout with a chasm where her future used to be. She'd been studying forensics; the plan, for as long as Ruth-Ann Baker could remember, was to become a criminal profiler. But all that changed, thanks to the episode. She went abruptly from being top of her classes at her city college to living with her uncle and Gideon, Joe's then-new husband, on their then-newly purchased hobby farm in the Hudson Valley. It wasn't an official term by any means: 'the episode'. But that's what they called it, Ruth, Joe and Gideon. And Officer Canton, back in Hoben, although he likely had many names for what she put him through that winter. When she came out the other side in the spring, Joe suggested she move into his recently vacated apartment on the Upper West Side. It would save him having to find a new tenant, he told her. Before the episode, Ruth had lived in a small Morningside Heights apartment with her parents, or rather her mom, because her dad had already moved out. Living by herself felt like a much needed reset button, and it helped that Ruth knew Joe's building and the neighbourhood well; she and her parents had stayed here for a full year when they first moved to New York, in the fall of 1996. Any concerns Ruth's family had about her living alone were eased when Officer Canton, who they'd known for years, showed up at the farm with Ressler. This, too, was framed as a mutually beneficial proposition. Despite his pedigree, the loving but recalcitrant bloodhound was failing spectacularly in his designated career as a K-9 with the Hoben Police Department, where Canton had his hands full with new canine recruits. If Ruth could just look after him for a while . . . (Of course, Ressler, all droopy, one hundred pounds of him, ending up looking after her.) Owen knows very little about that time in Ruth's life. When Joe introduced the two of them, Ruth had met Owen's requirements for bar staff: thanks to her uncle, she had a solid appreciation for the world of musical theatre and an unwavering respect for the pride flag that hung out the front of Sweeney's. Whether or not Ruth could pour beers was irrelevant, as was her history before she walked in the door— although her new boss did have a particular fascination with Ruth's former field of studies, which she'd shared in her (very informal) interview, because Joe said she didn't need to lie about her past. Just tell small truths, Ruthie, her uncle had advised her. Then no one thinks to go looking for the big ones. 'You know Ruth-Ann,' Owen said at the start of her first shift, 'they say a bartender has as much chance of predicting a person's behaviour as a fully trained criminal profiler. So consider this job a continuation of your studies!' 'I'll be on the lookout for any dubious pie makers,' she'd replied, the reference to Sweeney Todd cementing their friendship just like that. On her second night at Sweeney's, Ruth had walked in to find a large glass jar behind the bar. Inside was a glossy photograph of Len Cariou from the original Broadway production of Sweeney Todd, along with a pink disposable razor. 'I got you a Kill Jar,' Owen explained proudly. 'Anyone gives you demon barber vibes, you can take their credit card from that little tab folder I showed you yesterday and drop it in this jar instead, and I'll know to keep an eye on them for the rest of the night. How does that sound, Nancy Drew?' She'd nodded, feeling alarmingly close to tears. Since then, Owen has seldom called Ruth by her own name. It's either Nancy, or whatever other fictional female detective he's encountered while flipping through old television shows at 3 am. And they've rarely needed to use the Kill Jar. But she's remained quietly committed to its purpose, because she's always on the lookout for demons. That said, she's too distracted to profile anyone tonight, suspicious or otherwise. In fact, she probably couldn't pick any of Sweeney's current patrons out of a line-up; they could all be the same person, so blurred is her normally keen vision. Her attention has been fixed on those three silent televisions mounted on the wall. She's been hoping to catch a news ticker running along the bottom of the screens, some kind of update on the missing girl. Because it wouldn't be breaking her promise if information about the little girl's disappearance came directly to her, would it? It's not like she asked for that AMBER Alert, either. But there are no breaking headlines from Hoben, Connecticut, scrolling beneath the Monday Night Baseball broadcast that Jan, Sweeney's barback and most committed Major League fan, has playing across every screen. If it wasn't for the memory of that shrill alert she'd received at her apartment, Ruth might think she'd imagined the whole thing. Conjured up a missing child after she'd realised the date. Because this unremarkable Monday in late May has long been designated Missing Children's Day, here in the States and around the globe. Was that alarm simply another one of Ruth-Ann Baker's infamous delusions, brought on by her aversion to this date? She could ask Owen if he, too, received the AMBER Alert. Or maybe check with Jan, whose phone is always buzzing with sports scores and sure bets she'd placed the night before. But Ruth can't think how to frame the question casually enough that they won't see the glitter of her panic. Hey, guys, did you see a kid just went missing from my old home town? What if they say no? What if they say yes? Ruth is not prepared to have either of those conversations. She busies herself with work instead, losing herself in the mundanity of pouring beers, refilling popcorn bowls and forcing smiles. Finally, right on 11pm, the bar clears out. Soon, there are only two customers left. A couple of old regulars, sitting on one of the ratty couches down the back, drinking bourbon and arguing about who should be allowed to run for president. 'Time to go,' Owen shouts down the bar, before asking Ruth if she'd like to join him and Jan for a post-closing nightcap, which she knows is code for heading to a club in Chelsea, where she'll sit in a booth minding their bags and the drinks, while they dance until sunrise. 'Gotta get home to Ressler,' she answers, faux apologetic, and Owen seems to buy this excuse, because he tells her she might as well finish for the night then. The two quarrelling regulars haven't even left yet as Ruth races out the door, before her boss can change his mind. Walking home, Manhattan's calm, spring air is at odds with her mood. Without Sweeney's to tether her, Ruth is beginning to feel those tremors again. And now she has her own safety to worry about, too. It's something she has to consider after every late shift. How to navigate streets that change shape in the dark. Ruth knows that if you regularly walk alone at night, you should probably mix up your route a little. Tonight, after leaving the bar earlier than usual, she makes a quick calculation. If she heads south on Amsterdam, she's guaranteed to see other nocturnals exiting the twenty-four-hour CVSs and Duane Reades dotted along the way, all those harried people with their plastic bags full of painkillers and diapers and hopeful, last-minute contraception. At this hour, in this neighbourhood, there's always someone needing something, and she'd like to be noticed by them. So that if someone is ever asked, Have you seen this girl? they just might remember her. As a young woman living alone in a big city, she has to think about these things. A year ago, a teenage girl was murdered down in Riverside Park, and for weeks no one could figure out who she was. Most people were shocked by the whole thing, but not Ruth-Ann Baker. 'You act like this is Times Square before the Marriott moved in,' Owen teased her once, when he saw the self-defence kit she carries in her bag. The lipstick stun gun in particular had amused him. On the walk home tonight, she slips that little stun gun into her pocket, next to her keys. When she reaches her uncle Joe's co-op on West 86th, Ruth looks left, right, left again before heading through the first of the building's two security doors. Despite her eagerness to get upstairs, she waits until the second door has clicked shut behind her before she races across the gleaming lobby to the elevator. She keeps her right hand in her pocket, fingers smoothing over the stun gun, as she takes the slow ride up to her floor. Before exiting into the shared hallway, she closes her eyes briefly, listens for the sound of footsteps or breathing, and then she walks purposefully to her apartment's front door. Stepping inside, she barely has time to fix the three internal chain locks before Ressler gambols towards her, perpetual drool dripping from his jowls. 'Hey, big guy,' she croons, bending down to scratch the folds of his ears. Ressler responds with his own scratch against her leg, a sign that he needs to be let out, asap. Ruth reaches for his harness, hanging from its hook in the entrance way. She might have been desperate to get home, but now she's here, taking Ressler for a walk suddenly feels like a welcome postponement. Because what comes next seems alarmingly inevitable... Extracted from Leave the Girls Behind by Jacqueline Bublitz. Published by Allen & Unwin. Out now. Jacqueline Bublitz will be appearing at the Auckland Writers Festival May 13-18. For more information and tickets, visit
Calgary Herald
06-05-2025
- Climate
- Calgary Herald
Alberta emergency alert test scheduled for Wednesday afternoon
The Government of Alberta will be testing the Emergency Alert System province-wide on Wednesday, May 7 at 1:55 p.m. as part of Emergency Preparedness Week. Article content Article content This test will be sent out on TV, radio, websites, social media, the Alberta Emergency Alert mobile app and compatible smart phones. It is not possible to opt out of alerts. Article content 'We recognize that some might find these tests to be a disturbance, but it is essential that we test our emergency system to make sure it's ready when we need it,' said Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis in a Monday statement about the alert. Article content Emergency Preparedness Week runs from May 4 to 10, and the goal is for Albertans to understand the disruption wildfires, floods, tornados or other emergencies would cause, and understand how to be prepared for those situations. Article content Article content 'As we know all too well in Alberta, disaster can strike at any moment, and being prepared can save lives. That's why it is so important to know the risks that exist in our communities and be prepared to navigate a range of emergencies and disruptions, big or small, at any time,' said Ellis. Article content Alberta's Emergency Alert System is used by various organizations in the province to make residents aware of a variety of emergencies. Article content Local authorities handle fires, floods, and hazardous materials, police manage criminal events including AMBER Alerts, Alberta 511 handle hazardous road conditions and Environment Canada oversees weather -related alerts. Article content In recent days, the alert has been used in northern Alberta as wildfires caused evacuations in Grande Prairie and Sturgeon Lake. Article content Article content This is an Alberta Emergency Alert. The County of Grande Prairie has updated a Wildfire alert. This Evacuation Order is still in effect for everyone south of Township Road 710 to 27 Avenue, and East of Range Road 64 to Highway 40 in County of Grande Prairie. Fire crews continue… — Alberta Emergency Alert (@AB_EmergAlert) May 5, 2025 Article content Calgarians received a dangerous person emergency alert in late 2024 after a double homicide in the city, warning that the suspect may be on the loose in the area. Article content The city also received an emergency alert after the city suffered a catastrophic water main break last summer, resulting in months of water restrictions. Article content These alerts provide residents in the affected areas with real-time information on situations, and allow people to respond appropriately to the emergency. Article content The province emphasized that local and provincial governments are prepared for emergencies, but the response will be more successful if individuals, households and organizations are also prepared. Article content The government recommends five steps for preparedness. Article content Know your risks: Identify hazards and understand the risks they pose to make navigating disruptions simpler. Article content Get and stay informed: It is recommended to follow official government channels on social media, and download apps such as Alberta Emergency Alert, 511 Alberta and WeatherCan to stay up-to-date on critical information. Article content Make a plan: Create an emergency plan for your household to better manage the stress of an emergency or disaster. Article content Build a kit: Having supplies ready at a moment's notice will hasten your response in an emergency. Visit the Government of Alberta website for tips on what to put in an emergency kit.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Yahoo
Who Killed Amber Hagerman? What We Know About the Still-Unsolved Case That Inspired AMBER Alerts
It's been almost three decades since Amber Hagerman was abducted and killed in Arlington, Texas. On Jan. 13, 1996, 9-year-old Amber and her younger brother, Ricky, were riding their bicycles around a parking lot. Ricky decided to return to their grandparents' house, but Amber did not make it back with him. Her body was found four days later near a creek roughly six miles from where she had been abducted, per The New York Times. "Finding Amber's body is a sad moment I'll never forget," Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson previously told PEOPLE. Despite efforts by investigators and her family, the case is still unsolved. In response to Amber's heart-wrenching case, a Texas mom named Diana Simone had the idea to create an emergency system for abducted children, similar to a weather or civil defense alert. After the pitch was picked up by the Child Alert Foundation, AMBER (America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) Alerts were created. The system went into development in 1996 and is still used today. "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," Amber's mother, Donna Williams, told Yahoo News in 2016. On the 25th anniversary of her disappearance, in January 2021, Arlington Police held a news conference in the parking lot where Amber was abducted. They honored the young girl's legacy and assured her family and the public that they were still looking for Amber's killer. 'I miss her voice. I miss her touch. I miss her hugs,' Williams said, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 'I remember everything about her. There's nothing I've forgotten about her." Here's everything to know about Amber Hagerman and how her murder led to the creation of AMBER Alerts. Amber Hagerman was born on Nov. 25, 1986, in Arlington, Texas, to Richard Hagerman and Donna Williams (at the time of Amber's disappearance, Williams went by the name Whitson). Williams left Hagerman in 1994, according to WFAA-TV. Amber was 9 years old when she was abducted. Williams described Amber to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 2021 as an 'innocent and sweet little girl' who loved being like a 'little mommy' to her younger brother, Ricky. She was a Girl Scout who loved writing, Barbies, the Disney princess Pocahontas and her pink bike. Her third-grade classmates at Barry Elementary in Arlington described her as 'pretty' and 'nice," according to a National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) blog post. Months before her abduction, Amber, Ricky and Williams, who at the time was a single mother working toward her GED, were interviewed by WFAA-TV for a special on welfare reform. In the piece, Amber showed off her scrapbook, which included awards for good grades and attendance, and Williams said Amber 'loved school.' "Amber was just a very sweet, innocent child, and that's the memory we got to hold onto as we investigate," Arlington Police Sgt. Grant Gildon told PEOPLE in 2022. "That this is someone who was doing something as innocent as riding a bicycle, and evil found her that day." On Jan. 13, 1996, Amber and her 5-year-old brother, Ricky, took their bicycles to a parking lot in Arlington, Texas. After a few minutes, Ricky decided to go back to their grandparents' home, about two blocks away. Before Amber could join her brother, according to one witness, a man in a black pick-up truck pulled into the parking lot, snatched Amber off her bicycle and took off. The abduction took place in broad daylight, at 3:18 p.m. local time. One month after Amber's murder, Williams visited her daughter's elementary school classmates. A boy asked what time Amber left on her bike, and Williams told him 3:10. 'It just took eight minutes,' she said, according to a 2021 NCMEC blog post. 'So you guys stay close to home, okay?' In 2016, 20 years after his sister's murder, Ricky told reporters that at the time, he 'didn't quite understand what was going on," per The Seattle Times. 'I just knew my sister was taken from us,' he said with tears in his eyes. 'She was my best friend, like a second mother.' A man named Jimmie Kevil was the only witness to come forward after Amber's abduction. He claimed to have seen the abduction from his backyard, telling police that a 1980s or 1990s single-cab black truck had been parked earlier at a nearby laundromat. The assailant allegedly drove up in the truck, kidnapped Amber and traveled away from Highway 360 towards the center of Arlington. 'I saw [Amber] riding up and down,' Kevil told CBS Dallas-Fort Worth in January 2016. 'She was by herself. I saw this black pickup. He pulled up, jumped out and grabbed her. When she screamed, I figured the police ought to know about it, so I called them.' Sgt. Ben Lopez, who was a rookie on the Arlington police force when Amber disappeared, acknowledged at a 2021 press conference that police knew there may have been undocumented residents at the laundromat who were afraid to come forward but 'if there is a witness or witnesses who have that concern, we are not interested at all in pursuing any kind of deportation.' Kevil died in May 2016. Four days after her disappearance, Amber's body was found in a drainage ditch with cuts, including to her throat. Amber's body was spotted by a man behind the Forest Ridge apartment complex, about six miles from the parking lot from which she was taken. Dee Anderson, a spokesperson for the Tarrant County police, said at the time that maintenance workers had been near the creek hours earlier, but Amber's body was not found. It was believed that her body 'moved there during a rainstorm,' according to The New York Times, and that she had been alive for 48 hours after her kidnapping. "We will find the person who did this," Anderson said. "We never want another little girl, another family, to go through what this little girl, this family, has been through." Sgt. Gildon described the area where Amber was found as 'very secluded.' "We do believe you'd have to be somewhat familiar with that area to know where that creek is," he told PEOPLE. "Was there a connection with that location? And was it someone who had a reason for turning back to the center of town? The thought has always been that the easiest way to get out of the area would've been to go to Highway 360." Police believe the suspect was a local male. Officials described him as White or Hispanic, in his 20s or 30s, under 6 ft. and with dark hair. "Based on the direction of travel when they left and then based on her being found in Arlington, being abducted in Arlington and just being in that spot, the question has always been, did somebody have a connection with that area where the abduction was?" Sgt. Gildon told PEOPLE. After Amber's murder, a local Texas mother named Diana Simone kept thinking about how Amber disappeared without a trace. "I said, 'I can't get over this child. There has to be something we can do,' " Simone told PEOPLE. There were weather and civil defense alerts so, "why wouldn't they do it for this?" Simone called a local radio station with an idea for an emergency system. The concept was that when a 911 call was placed, radio stations would immediately interrupt programming to broadcast the alert. Fourteen days after Amber's abduction, Simone wrote a letter to the station requesting that if the alert system got put into place, it should be known as Amber's plan. Dallas-Fort Worth broadcasters and local police then teamed up to develop an early warning system, according to the official AMBER Alert website. The system, officially named AMBER (America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) Alert, began development in 1996. It was first implemented on July 5, 1997, and the first success story came on Nov. 10, 1998, per Nevada's AMBER Alert website. The system, which is used in 'the most serious child-abduction cases,' aims to 'instantly galvanize the community to assist in the search for and safe recovery of a missing child,' according to the NCMEC, which manages the program for the U.S. Department of Justice. The alerts are first issued by law enforcement to broadcasters and state transportation officials. NCMEC is then notified, and they re-distribute the alert to secondary distributors, which include radio, television and road signs. As of 2013, messages are sent to phones through the Wireless Emergency Alerts program (WEA), and alerts are also shared on social media via Facebook, Instagram and X. Today, AMBER Alerts are used in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, parts of Indian country, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and 45 other countries, according to its website. As of Oct. 31, 2024, they have saved at least 1,221 children in the U.S., according to the NCMEC. Despite how far-reaching and impactful Amber's case has been, it is still unsolved. In the three decades since Amber's abduction, police have received over 7,000 tips. Gildon told PEOPLE that they 'continue to have leads' and several that 'we continue to investigate extensively as possible suspects.' 'A lot of people will refer to Amber's case as ... a cold case,' he said. 'But for the Arlington Police Department, it has never been listed as a cold case because we've never gone 180 days without having some lead come in." Gildon also said he believes the killer is still alive. Police remain hopeful that recent advancements in DNA testing, which have been used on evidence collected in Amber's case, and new tips from the public will help solve the case. "I remain optimistic that this case will be solved," Gildon said. "I do believe there's definitely someone out there who has the answers that we're looking for and can help lead us in the right direction. So, that's why we continue to work on it. Our goal has always remained the same, and that's to catch who did this and be able to prosecute them." Williams told Yahoo News that detectives call 'when they get a hot lead or something, but nothing ever comes of it.' 'How can [the killer] get away with this? I can't comprehend how you can't catch someone like that,' she said. In 2021, 25 years after Amber's murder, Arlington Police held a news conference in the parking lot where Amber was abducted. They honored the young girl's legacy and made it clear that they were still looking for Amber's killer. Williams also spoke to the media, then directly to the abductor: 'Please turn yourself in. Give Amber justice.' Amber's mother, Donna Williams, still lives in Texas and is a child safety advocate. In 2016, she did not own a smartphone and avoided spending time online, but she did hear AMBER alerts when they came through the TV or radio. 'Of course I think of my daughter first,' she told Yahoo News. 'I have to accept that the alerts are always going to be there." Williams has faced additional tragedies since losing her daughter, including the death of her fiancé in a car accident two months after Amber's funeral, her older sister's 1998 death from a seizure disorder and, in 2009, both her husband's death from a heart attack and her father's death from cancer. Amber's brother, Ricky Hagerman, is also still in contact with the police and continues to speak out about his sister. 'Every day she's on my mind,' he told reporters in 2016. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Yahoo
Arkansas Senate Bill 371 passes, Morgan Nick Foundation shares impact
ALMA, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — An Arkansas Senate Bill intended to establish a standardized reporting system for missing children who do not meet the minimum reporting criteria to issue an Arkansas AMBER Alert, has been signed into law. The bill, SB371, was signed by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday. According to the Arkansas State Police's AMBER Alert Plan, the following criteria must be met to issue an alert: There is a reasonable belief by law enforcement that an actual abduction has occurred. Law enforcement believes that the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death. There is enough descriptive information about the victim and the abduction for law enforcement to issue an AMBER Alert to assist in the recovery of the child. The abducted child is under 18 years of age. The child's name and other critical data elements, including the Child Abduction Flag, have been entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) system. However, the Morgan Nick Foundation says while they understand the necessity of maintaining reporting criteria for AMBER Alerts, it leaves many circumstances as to why a child may go missing uncovered. 'It's a very detailed list that is a requirement to meet before you can put out an AMBER Alert. The reason is because if we didn't do it that way, we would have just an influx of constant AMBER Alerts, which would then cause people to become immune to the seriousness of it,' said Genevie Strickland, Assistant Director of the Morgan Nick Foundation. Strickland says a majority of the cases they deal with don't qualify for an AMBER Alert. 'So, it's not as simple as just saying that kids are running. People tend to see a lot of just runaways. There are so many extenuating circumstances to that, things that are going on at home, things that are going on at school, things like kids that are meeting people online, they're being lured away, they're being trafficked,' Strickland said. Through SB371, a multitude of circumstances will now be covered by requiring the Arkansas State Police to create and maintain a 'missing endangered child advisory system.' According to the legislative text, for any child under the age of 18, the following circumstances will allow a report to be made in the system: When the disappearance of the child appears to be unexplained, involuntary, or suspicious. When it is suspected but not confirmed that the child was abducted. When the child has been diagnosed with a developmental disability or pervasive developmental disorder, or physical, mental, or cognitive impairment, or when the child may otherwise be in danger due to age, health, weather conditions, presence with a potentially dangerous person, or other circumstances. Strickland says seeing state senators create legislation of this kind is relieving. 'It's just a way to really put focus on those kids that don't meet the AMBER Alert. But it's still serious. It's serious when any child is missing,' Strickland said. 'I know it's never going to be any kind of closure for Colleen, but it certainly does help towards going into the future with greater safety and greater kind of bans in Arkansas to protect our kids.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
