National AMBER Alert Awareness Day

Since the program’s inception, over 500 abducted children across the country have been safely recovered as a direct result of AMBER Alerts.

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 Connecticut Amber plan in January 2002, there have been activations.  In all cases, the children were successfully recovered.   So far, there have been no activations so far in Connecticut in 2012.

In Connecticut the Amber Alert Plan is a solid partnership between local and state law enforcement, Radio, TV, the State DOT, The Connecticut Lottery, AT&T, AOL, and Connecticut Citizens. Working together to prevent/save any abducted child from harm.  The goal of the Amber Alert System is to instantly alert the entire state immediately when a child is abducted, providing a physical description of a victim child, the suspect, or a suspect’s car.  This enables the pubic to be law enforcement’s EYES & EARS to assist in that immediate search for that child.

Connecticut State Police Colonel Danny Stebbins emphasized the importance of partnerships, “The success of the CONNECTICUT AMBER ALERT PLAN can be directly credited to safe return of children right here in our state.  The commitment of our partners continuing to work very closely ensures that many ‘eyes and ears’ receive our AMBER Alert message to help all police departments quickly and safely locate an abducted child.”

An amber alert will only be activated if a child is 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. In other words, this is a true emergency!!!

The Connecticut Amber Alert Plan is a very successful tool that law enforcement may use to assist in combating the horrific and heartbreaking crime that our children often face after being abducted. The success of the plan sends a strong message that crime against our children is unacceptable and that as a society we will work together to track down these perpetrators and recover the children that they intend to harm.

We strongly urge Connecticut Citizens to remember,  if you hear or see an active amber alert in Connecticut please react LOOK & LISTEN, become a member of the amber alert team help to protect our children.

Submitted by: Lt. J. Paul Vance