Community Services Section

AMBER Alert

Amber Rene Hagerman was a bright, blue-eyed, third grader from Arlington, Texas, who was an honor-roll student, a girl scout, and a whiz on roller skates. She was also a fun-loving, 9-year-old who enjoyed playing with her little brother Ricky, watching her favorite television show “I Love Lucy,” and eating lots of vanilla ice cream.

But one Saturday afternoon in 1996, Amber’s innocent life was taken away when a man grabbed Amber from her bicycle and drove off. Four days later she was found brutally murdered.

Amber’s tragic death had such a profound impact on her community and throughout northern Texas that it prompted regional law-enforcement agencies and broadcasters to develop an innovative emergency alert plan to help recover abducted children. They named it the AMBER Plan. Amber will always be remembered as the little girl from Texas who inspired her community to create a pioneering program to help rescue other abducted children.

The Amber Plan

Local broadcasters across the country are working in partnership with law-enforcement agencies in their communities to develop and implement local AMBER Plans. The goals are to help ensure that people in the area know as soon as possible that a local child has been abducted and to provide them with the information they need to help return the child to safety.

The plan calls for law-enforcement agencies to alert radio and television stations within minutes of a child abduction in the same way stations are alerted during tornadoes, hurricanes, or other civil emergencies. The goal of the plan is to instantly galvanize the entire community to assist in the search for the child and suspect.

Statistics show that the first few hours of a child abduction are critical to the outcome of the case. According to a study by the U.S. Department of Justice, 74 percent of the children who were kidnapped and later found murdered were killed within the first 3 hours after being taken. That statistic alone should prompt every community to implement the AMBER Plan before a tragedy strikes.

The AMBER Plan sends a strong message that crimes against children are intolerable and that by working together, law enforcement, broadcasters, and individuals have the power to apprehend predators and bring abducted children home.