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Amber Alerts explained and why activation was needed in recent event

Sep 19, 2018 | 6:05 PM

Following the Amber Alert situation in the Battlefords area earlier this week, much discussion has resulted about what an emergency of that nature entails.

Amber Alert emergency messages, such as the one involving the abduction of a six-year-old girl on Sunday, are activated in high-risk situations. Saskatchewan RCMP Cpl. Rob King, with the Communications Unit, talked to northeastNOW about what factors must be met in an Amber Alert situation.

“An Amber Alert is not taken into lightly,” he said. “We’re very careful about which things we call Amber Alerts for … We don’t do an amber alert for every type of missing persons, because you would lose the impact because people would become desensitized.”

In the case of the Sunday’s call, which came out just before 7:30 p.m., the situation covered the criteria of the Amber Alert situation, King said.

“One of the criteria that you need to have for an Amber Alert is you need to have a person that is vulnerable – usually a child – that has gone missing,” he said. “You need to have either a subject description, or a subject’s name, or in this case, we had a vehicle that was identifiable, and we had a place of departure. Given the at-risk nature of the victim, and that we had a definite vehicle we knew would be with the victim at the time, it qualified for the Amber Alert.”

Amber Alert v Missing Person

When it comes to the difference between an Amber Alert and a missing person situation, King said there are certain criteria that are met for each and every situation.

“A missing person is generally when you have a person where they are no longer supposed to be,” he said. “Sometimes, a missing person could be a person that left on their own accord, or sometimes it’s just a person that was delayed or an overdue traveller, that would qualify as a missing person. For an Amber Alert, it has to be something that we have evidence that someone has actually taken a person against their will from an area to an unknown area. You have to have those things to look for to really call for the Amber Alert.”

 When it comes to missing person’s files, different criteria is met for the RCMP to put those steps into action. Cpl. King said it’s all about looking at the facts and determining the proper protocol.

“For missing persons, what we usually do is we put out the media releases, and we will post it on our own Facebook pages and our RCMP website for missing persons to try and raise public awareness,” he said. “An Amber Alert is at a much higher level, hence then, once the protocol has been met, the Amber Alert Process is started.”

Once the activation of an Amber Alert begins, many steps and different procedures are then thrown into action, not just at the policing level. 

“One of the parts of the Amber Alert process is notifying all the media by a personal phone call that we’re getting ready to call an Amber Alert because the media has entered into this agreement with the police that there are certain things they must do,” King said. “Certain things like notifying every 15 minutes and breaking into regular programming that they sometimes need to get staff in place as well. It usually takes approximately 15 people just in Regina alone to initiate and maintain the Amber Alert, and it’s all the additional people the media outlets have to call in for them to start the Amber Alert on their side.”

Just the Facts

King said each situation focuses on the facts, not what race the victim is or who they are.

“Most of the missing persons we get, there’s missing persons and there’s requests to locate,” he said. “Request to locate is maybe the person that doesn’t want to be found, or has left on their own accord or maybe an overdue traveller. That’s a request to locate. You want the public to be aware that this person isn’t where they are supposed to be, can you keep an eye out for them. That’s one level.

“The problem is, even what we find now, with missing persons, we will put out in Saskatchewan alone two, maybe three missing persons a day, people become desensitized to it,” he said. “They don’t pay as much attention to it, even the media doesn’t pay as much attention to it as we’d ideally like. The Amber Alert is only used in specific circumstances because it is a definite, life-threatening issue, and there’s evidence and things to look for.”

Investigation Ongoing

The way the local community banded together and searched for the missing young girl earlier this week is something that Cpl. King won’t soon forget.

“Having the volunteers that showed up in North Battleford and were willing to go look is absolutely fabulous,” he said. “It shows that people really do care and want to help. The only problem is that sometimes that if the search isn’t coordinated or organized, it becomes a melee and areas get missed. One of the things we’ve talked about in the past is if you’re going to start the search effort is to try and coordinate or find specific areas for each search group and be in constant contact with each other. Don’t search as individuals, but as a group. Maintain a schedule, maintain areas in which you’ve covered, you just have to be organized.”

King said RCMP are still investigating the abduction that led to the Amber Alert.

“We are still looking for the person responsible and the person that is responsible for this entire situation was the person that hopped in the vehicle that wasn’t there’s, that took the vehicle without permission that drove it to an isolated area and hid it off in the bushes and then abandoned it,” he said. “Any information that the public has or any possible sightings of that vehicle driving around the community of North Battleford would be invaluable to us.”

 

brady.lang@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @BradyLangCJNB