NATIONAL AMBER ALERT AWARENESS DAY

(Pikesville, MD) - Today, the nation recognizes National AMBER Alert Awareness Day. Since the program’s inception, 554 abducted children across the country have been safely recovered as a direct result of AMBER Alerts.

While there are 120 plans across the country, there is one official AMBER Alert plan in Maryland and that plan is administered by the Maryland State Police, in cooperation with Maryland broadcasters. This statewide plan is recognized by the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Since the inception of the Maryland plan in August of 2002, there have been only twenty-nine activations. In all but the first case, the children were successfully recovered.

As a founding member of the Maryland AMBER Alert Advisory Board, MSP Colonel Marcus L. Brown emphasizes the importance of partnerships, “The success of the Maryland AMBER Alert Plan can be directly credited to the growing number and commitment of national and state partnerships. We will continue to work very closely with public and private entities to ensure as many ‘eyes and ears’ receive an AMBER Alert message in order to quickly and safely locate an abducted child.”

While technology is one of the greatest assets to the program, it is also one of the greatest hindrances. Nationwide, the “AMBER Alert” name has been the subject of various hoax texts and emails. A well-intentioned public often forwards misguided, phony, or outdated texts, emails and/or messages via social networks which refer to AMBER Alerts. We strongly urge the public to react only to AMBER Alerts from authorized sources, such as: the Maryland State Police website (AMBER Alert is located on the home page), wireless AMBER Alerts, Missingkids.com/National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The furtherance of such phony, misguided, or outdated “alerts” jeopardizes the integrity of the AMBER Alert plan and, potentially, a child’s life. To receive AMBER Alerts, the public may sign-up to receive free text messages via www.wirelessamberalerts.org. Those who sign-up will also receive the AMBER Alert cancellation message when the alert is no longer required.

The Maryland State Police strictly adheres to the AMBER Alert criteria, as recommended by the Department of Justice: the abducted child must be aged 17 or younger, the child must be in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death, and there must be enough descriptive information about the abducted child, suspect and vehicle in order to make an AMBER Alert activation viable. The Maryland AMBER Alert plan is not intended for runaways or for the majority of parental abductions, except in rare circumstances.