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useless amber/silver alerts


Hagbard Celine

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6am the phone blasts an amber alert

2-year old missing from rotan

"check local media"

that's it

no vehicle, no license plate

https://abc13.com/amber-alert-victoria-alerman-rotan-texas-reyes-fortuna-figueroa-wanted-in-near-abilene/8326447/

either a kidnapping or parental dispute of some kind?

2 names, 2 pictures

ROTAN TEXAS

4 hours from dallas

8 hours from houston

millions woken up at 6am for a useless APB with zero actionable data

i believe the DPS owns the decision about what and when to broadcast

they need to up their game.  or maybe tom herman already has his next job.

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I imagine that most would agree that statewide Amber (and the other) alerts do not accomplish much. However what state rep is going to champion making kids less safe by attempting to eliminate these alerts.

FYI, it appears that 15-20% of the Amber alerts recover the child supposedly due to the alert. Another 65% are recovered not due to the alert. The rest are mistakes, hoaxes, unknown result and unfortunately non-recoveries. Of course, it doesn't mean that the 15-20% wouldn't have been recovered or returned anyway. Most abductions are by parents who don't have custody, and in these cases the physical threat to the child is extremely low.

Are alerts targeted to certain regions in Texas, or are they all statewide? I don't understand the purpose of telling me in Houston at 6am that a 2 year old is missing in Rotan, TX (NW of Abilene) without any other info. If I'm at a Houston grocery store and see a 2 year old, am I supposed to call the police or detain the adult they're with?

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So, Tuesday night, fone went off and I almost ignored it as another fucking Amber Alert.

Turned out to be a Tornado Warning.  I was watching a cable channel, so the Emergency Broadcast System had yet to kick in.  I wouldn't have known otherwise, but it freaked me out considerably because I am just a couple of miles from last year's fall tornado devastation.

Of course, the Warning was canceled before anything got to us so NBD.

But I do need to go turn off Amber Alerts after another update.

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18 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

The silver alerts on the highway are also pretty useless. If I am in Houston, it is unlikely I will be coming across the old in his Crown Vic who got lost on the way home from church in San Angelo. Thanks for the distracting sign though!

You might if he's really, really lost

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20 hours ago, Mikey4 said:

Yep, I've had them disabled for years. I would understand if they were alerting me to people who went missing in my city, but some random message about someone hundreds of miles away is unnecessary.

Yeah.  Maybe if it was like "Amber alert in your neighborhood", I might call in the creepy neighbor across the street, since once every few months you might hear what sounds like muffled screaming from the attic vent (or it's just a cat in heat or the TV too loud or something).

But from a few cities over, when I live in a metropolitan of over a million, with the busiest highway in Texas running through it?

Edited by atomheartbevo
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