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From Homeland
Security
Amber Alert Should Be Nationwide By Next Year
A nationwide network to help find missing children should be in place by this time next year, a Justice Department official said Sunday as more than 350 law-enforcement officials, broadcasters and highway safety officials gathered for the first national training conference in Dallas on the Amber Alert.
Deborah Daniels, assistant U.S. Attorney General in the Office of Justice Programs said states have made great strides in developing Amber Alert systems, with 45 states now operating statewide networks. In October 2001, there were only five statewide Amber Alert programs.
Daniels said that communication between states is lacking. "Right now we're probably doing what I call 20th-centry interstate communication. What we need to do is get this into the 21st century."
The conference is intended to familiarize teams from all 50 states and six territories with each other's Amber Alert systems, educate them about the most effective and affordable technology and address kinks in the systems, such as overuse.
"There's a tremendous danger in using this vital tool too often," Daniels said in a speech. "Overuse could desensitize the public and cause them to ignore the critical nature of true emergencies."
Amber Alerts are named after Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl abducted in Arlington and later found murdered. The bulletins are distributed through radio and television broadcasts and electronic highway signs on kidnapped children and abductors.
Daniels said the Amber Alert that once depended on fax and email to relay images and messages now relies on digital images. Since it began, Amber Alert has resulted in the safe return of more than 80 abducted children.
In a related story, the Amber Alert system helped safely return two abducted Houston-area children on August 3rd. Michelle and Ashley Villatoro, ages 3 and 18 months, were recovered at a bus station in Santa Barbara, California with their father, Luiz Gonzales.
The Amber Alert system was able to successfully alert police in Santa Barbara that Gonzales and the girls may be on a Greyhound bus arriving there from Dallas. The alert came only ten minutes before the buses arrival, but more than 200 police officers were able to respond.
Gonzales is wanted as a suspect in the death of his ex-wife, Maria Villatoro. Maria and her children had last been seen together leaving a daycare center in northeast Houston on July 31st.
Maria's bullet-ridden body was found on August 1st near a construction site in Katy, Texas. The children were missing. A person in Dallas spotted the suspect and the children at the bus station, and alerted police. The Amber Alert system was able to effectively track the bus to Santa Barbara where the children were recovered. "They were able to tell us what bus he was getting on, " said Special Agent Bob Dogium with the Houston FBI office.
Maria's father, Benito Villatoro, said he and his wife will take custody of the children.
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