Amber Alert founder says system is being misused
Amber Alert founder says system is being misused
For nearly 30 years, the Amber Alert has helped locate abducted children. But its founder believes changes should be made to make the emergency alert system more effective.
ARLINGTON, Texas - For nearly 30 years, the Amber Alert has helped locate abducted children. But its founder believes changes should be made to make the emergency alert system more effective.
Amber Alert Origins
Diana Simone is the person whose simple idea in 1996 became what is known today across the globe as the Amber Alert.
It followed her own feelings of helplessness as Arlington police and the community desperately searched for 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was the victim of a kidnapping.
Amber Hagerman’s murder, who inspired Amber Alerts, still unsolved 25 years later
On Jan. 13, 1996, 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted while riding her bike in a parking lot. Police still have not solved the crime.
Amber Alert Misuse
What they're saying:
Simone believes the Amber Alert today is oversaturated and misused.
"I don’t mean to minimize the importance of a missing child report, but there is a very, very distinct difference between an Amber Alert and a missing child," she said.
"That’s the thing that people have lost sight of is the imminent danger, serious, bodily injury or death. That’s how we wrote it. That’s how we sold it. That’s how it was brought up and how we put it into place," added former Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson, who worked alongside Simone to create the Amber Alert.
Andersons said the criteria for the alert was always intended to be the highest level of a threat to a child. But some law enforcement agencies have strayed from that recently.
He recalled a conversation with one officer.
"He admitted. He said in those child custody cases it scares that custodial, non-custodial parent into bringing the kid back. That’s what happens. They’ll go, ‘God they’re looking for me.’ And they take the kid back. They’ll say we’re not filing any charges, and they just use it as a tool. That’s not what it was designed for. That’s not what it should be used for," the former sheriff said.
What is an Athena Alert?: What you need to know
After the 2022 disappearance of 7-year-old Athena Strand in Wise County, a new bill was signed into law that created a version of an Amber Alert known as the ‘Athena Alert.’ Here's what it means.
Amber Alert Changes
What's next:
Simone hopes an effort gets underway to lobby lawmakers for changes to the criteria and technology.
She believes the current sound effect of the alert on cellphones is too jarring. While some sense of urgency is necessary, many people have turned off the blaring notifications.
The alert also disappears and is nearly impossible to find again after people unlock their cellphone screens.
"We’re using 30-year-old technology for a current problem. I mean, Sprouts texts me that mushrooms are on sale. Certainly we can find a way to text the Amber Alerts to where they do not disrupt and jar people’s life where they have the information available," she said.
"It’s what we feared from day one. We said if it gets to be routine, routine kills it. It’s a shell of what it was when we started," Anderson said.
The Source: FOX 4 reporter Dionne Anglin talked to Diana Simone and Dee Anderson to gather details for this story. The pair worked together following Amber Hagerman's kidnapping to develop the Amber Alert.