Showing posts with label Amber Alert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amber Alert. Show all posts

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Amber Alert highway signs in Massachusetts not just for missing children:


MassLive.com

Massachusetts

Massachusetts 
By Fred Contrada, The Republican
on December 29, 2012 at 9:00 AM, updated December 29, 2012 at 11:50 AM








Amber alert signs 2012.jpg   This is one of the new electronic signs along Interstate 91 indented to warn motorists when there is an Amber Alert. This sign hangs over the southbound lanes near the Birnie Avenue exit. The Republican file / Mark M. Murray   

NORTHAMPTON – Motorists are grateful for the information broadcast on highway signs associated with Amber Alerts, even when the message has nothing to do with a missing child, some Western Massachusetts residents say.

The electronic signs have been issuing information on missing children in Massachusetts since at least 2005, according to the Massachusetts Department of Transportation. The Amber Alter is named after Amber Hagerman, a child who was abducted and killed in 1996.

The state Amber Alert law went into effect in 2002. It states that when a child is determined by state police to be missing and in danger, information is disseminated over the airwaves and 91 electronic signs posted along Massachusetts highways. Thirteen of those signs are along Interstate 91, another four on Route 290.

According to Michael Verseckes, a spokesman for the Department of Transporation>, the department rotates eight public safety messages on the signs when there is not an Amber Alert. These include fog and storm warnings,construction notices and reminders to wear seat belts and not to text while driving.

Amber Alerts include descriptions of the missing children and available information about any vehicle that might be involved in the abduction.

“We do our best to put information out to drivers in the most efficient and effective way,” Verseckes said.
Ambert Alerts can be few and far between. The last one posted on highway signs was on Oct. 31, according to Verseckes. Motorists who drive the highways say they find messages such as weather advisories useful.
“It can be helpful, to people, especially when they’re traveling,” said Caitlin Leverin, who lives in the Berkshires and was visiting Northampton this week.

Mallory Romanovitch, who was also visiting Northampton from Connecticut, said the notices can be useful or distracting, depending on where they’re located.

“If it suddenly comes into your point of view, it can be a distraction,” she said.

Peter Baid of Northampton said the traffic advisories serve a purpose for him.

“It’s important to know what the traffic is,” he said. “At least I’ll know what to do.”

Kenneth Jodrie, who commutes daily between Northampton and Chicopee, said the weather and traffic advisories are no more distracting than the Amber Alerts, which can contain a lot of information.

“The whole thing is visual pollution anyway,” Jodrie said. “They should eliminate them altogether.”
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Monday, December 10, 2012

Discovery of bodies renews interest in missing persons notification:

Sioux City Journal
Discovery of bodies renews interest in missing persons notification
Missing Cousins Iowa

3 hours ago  •  JEFF REINITZ Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier
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EVANSDALE, Iowa | The discovery of two bodies believed to be those of missing cousins Lyric Cook-Morrissey and Elizabeth Collins on Wednesday has renewed interest in Iowa’s missing persons notification system.
As Gov. Terry Branstad expressed sympathy for families of the girls, he said the state will take a look at what can be done differently when children disappear.
“We’ll review our laws and see if there’s more that we can do to be as effective as possible,” Branstad said, alluding to changes in laws adopted followed the abduction of 12-year-old West Des Moines newspaper carrier Johnny Gosch in 1982.
The comments came as signatures for the proposed “Cousins Law” — which would mandate certain steps be taken at different points in an investigation — passed 10,500 signatures.
Sen. Jeff Danielson said he will introduce legislation similar to the Cousins Law proposal when legislators begin their 2013 session.
“We think there are opportunities with social media and other formal networks of communications in law enforcement that we can certainly improve the ability for the public to know what’s going on and how to help,” Danielson said.
In an interview hours before Wednesday’s discovery, Elizabeth’s mother, Heather Collins, said she supported a change because of what she saw as shortcomings in the criteria for Amber Alerts.
“We do need to have something different,” Heather Collins said. “When a child is missing, you shouldn’t need a car or a suspect.”
Under the Amber Alert system, law enforcement needs specific details — for instance a suspect description, a vehicle or a license plate — in order to activate the notification.
Because authorities had nothing more than the descriptions of Lyric and Elizabeth, an Amber Alert wasn’t issued when the cousins disappeared.
Police did activate an automated system that called phones in the area where the girls were last seen within an hour and 50 minutes of learning of the disappearance, according to a timeline provided by authorities.
The Cousins Law proposal would require authorities to use the existing “A Child Is Missing” system, run by a Florida organization that places phone calls containing descriptions of missing children to homes and businesses near the disappearance. After two hours, the Cousins proposal calls for voluntary vehicle and home searches, and at the three-hour mark there would be an Amber Alert-like notification that would include interstate marquees.
Robin Arnold of Cedar Falls, who wrote the proposal and gathered signatures, envisions fines for not following the protocol.
Evansdale Police Chief Kent Smock said he welcomes any improvements and is open to having new tools available to authorities, but he cautioned against mandates.
“By mandating certain things that have to be done, they are essentially handcuffing law enforcement from doing other, possibly more productive, investigations in the disappearance,” Smock said.
For instance, setting up checkpoints at a certain time, especially for a small department, may draw manpower away from chasing other leads, he said.
Smock said he wasn’t familiar with A Child is Missing when the cousins disappeared July 13, but he did request Black Hawk County’s Emergency Management Agency activate a similar telephone notification using the Everbridge system.
That started at 4:40 p.m. July 13 — about an hour and 50 minutes after police were notified of the disappearance — according to the timeline.
Lorie Glover, the county emergency management coordinator, said the Everbridge alert went to land-line phones in a half-mile radius of where the girls were seen. The distance was determined by police, and the phone numbers were drawn from the dispatch center’s 911 database.
It was the first time the Everbridge system was activated for an emergency in Black Hawk County. The county switched to Everbridge July 1 after having used an outfit call CodeRED since 2009.
At 4:30 p.m., the cousins’ names were entered into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, a law enforcement database, and at 8:30 p.m. the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children began faxing and emailing photos and description of the cousins to truck stops, stores and other locations within 100 miles.
The timeline shows police were considering abduction as a possibility early on. Interviews with sex offenders started at 7 p.m. the day of disappearance and continued for days, and what became a nightly survey of trash Dumpsters began Saturday.
“We weren’t leaving any stone unturned. We didn’t take anything off the plate,” Smock said.
Investigators also examined the phones and computers of family members and checked homes. Smock said this was because statistics on child disappearances show the child often is with a family member or someone they know.
As for the vehicle searches, the Cousins Law proposes they be voluntary, and Danielson said nothing he will introduce will infringe on constitutional rights, he said.
Vehicle checkpoints were used during the search for Lyric and Elizabeth on July 17 and July 20. Smock said they weren’t searches and weren’t random but, instead, targeted specific times and locations where the girls were seen. They were conducted to jog the memories of motorists who may have been out and about in the areas where the girls had been at about the time they would have passed through, Smock said.
EVANSDALE — Within minutes of authorities learning of the disappearance of Lyric Cook Morrissey and Elizabeth Collins, three Evansdale squad cars were scouring the area and checking the home. Within half an hour, the search mushroomed with four Black Hawk sheriff’s deputies and Evansdale firefighters joining the effort.
Below is a timeline of the search for the missing cousins progressed based on notes kept by Kent Smock, who doubles as Evansdale’s police and fire chiefs. He said some information about specific leads was redacted from notes because of the ongoing investigation.
























































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