On the Job 

When an Amber Alert is issued, the vast resources of law enforcement and community unite with a passion to save a missing child.
 
Cynthia Peterman, deputy director of the Criminal Intelligence and Missing Persons units at BCI, said the Amber Alert is like no other call. In the earliest moments of an alert, the Crimes Against Children, Missing Persons and Intelligence units at the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation start gathering information. Outside the agency, others are doing the same.
 
“When this alert goes off, the highway patrol, BCI, local law enforcement, the FBI and many others come together with a focus on recovering that missing child,” she said. “That’s what’s really important.
 
“Broadcasters, the Ohio Department of Transportation, the media — the list is incredible. Google and Facebook put out alerts, too,” she said. “You just don’t get this cooperation for any other type of case.”
 
When a 6-year-old girl was kidnapped in 2013 in Jackson County, Larry McCoy, a special agent for BCI and the Ohio Child Abduction Response Team (CART) coordinator, recalled that at least 10 agencies became involved in the case, plus civilian search-and-rescue groups and volunteers. 
 
“There were easily 100-plus people down there at one point,” he said.
 
“When BCI put out a request for help, we had guys three hours away calling to say, ‘Do you need me?’”
 
The child was abandoned by her captor in a cemetery and managed to make her way to a nearby residence. In June, her kidnapper and rapist, Zachary Dunn, 32, was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
 
On the day of Dunn’s conviction, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine recognized the work of the Crimes Against Children Critical Response Team, the Jackson Police Department, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office and the many other law enforcement and public safety agencies involved in the search for the child and suspect, and the subsequent investigation.
 
 “This defendant committed one of the most heinous crimes imaginable, and with this sentence he will never have the chance to hurt another child ever again,” DeWine said. “Those who target children in this state will be met with the full force of the law.”
 
Peterman was impressed by the teamwork in that case and in other Amber Alert situations.
 
“There is a process that kicks in very quickly,” she said. “When this particular alarm goes off, it is a unified response from all of us involved.” 
 
When a child is abducted:

• Local law enforcement responds to the scene, enters information about the child into the Law Enforcement Automated Data System (LEADS) run by the Ohio State Highway Patrol, and can make a request for an Amber Alert.

• BCI, the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Highway Patrol get that request. The Highway Patrol reviews the information, and if the case meets the criteria, it issues an Amber Alert.

 
McCoy is always at the ready to get involved to help local law enforcement when the need occurs.
 
“Once we get the request for assistance, it gets forwarded to a whole host of us,” McCoy said. “I contact the agency to get information to start accessing what we can do to help.” 
 
Often, McCoy — or one of the 40 CART coordinators throughout the state — is asked to respond to the scene. There, he works as an adviser to the incident commander. 
 
“I make suggestions and offer resources,” he said. “I’ll help direct the response to the recovery and also to the investigative resources that come in.”
 
Amber Alerts last until the child is found.
 
The all-out response is similar in cases where an Endangered Missing Child Alert is issued.
 
Together, state and local authorities decide if the facts of the case warrant the issuing of either the Amber Alert or Endangered Missing Child Alert. The Highway Patrol assists in the issuing of the Amber Alerts and BCI assists in the issuing of the Endangered Missing Child Alerts. 
 
 “You don’t want an Amber Alert going out so often that no one’s paying attention to it anymore,” McCoy said, “so they have that list of criteria that they have to go through.“
 
The response from BCI is the same in either situation, McCoy said. “We treat it as a worst-case scenario until proven otherwise.” 
 
And the alerts work, he said. “People pay attention.”
 
Amber Alerts are for abducted children and are designed to be issued and disseminated quickly.

1. The child must be younger than 18.
2. The abduction must pose a credible threat of immediate danger of serious bodily harm to the child.
3. Law enforcement must have a sufficient description of the child, the suspect and/or the circumstances of the abduction to believe that activation of the alert will help locate the child.
4. Law enforcement must have determined that the child isn’t a runaway and wasn’t taken by a family member who poses no threat.

Endangered Missing Child Alerts are for any type of at risk missing child.

1. The child is a runaway or has gone missing with no witnesses.
2. The child’s missing status and the fact that the victim is in danger of serious harm must be confirmed by law enforcement.
3. Enough descriptive information must exist about the case to allow for public assistance.

What does ‘AMBER’ stand for?

AMBER is an acronym for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response and was coined as a legacy to 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, who was kidnaped in 1996 while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas. Her body was found four days later in a ditch. Her homicide remains unsolved.

Do the alerts work?

Since the inception on Jan. 1, 2003, of the Ohio Amber Alert, 172 alerts have been issued and 195 children have been recovered safe.*

Since 1996, national Amber Alert programs have helped save the lives of 772 children nationwide.**

How do I sign up to receive them?

Visit www.ohioattorneygeneral.gov/Law-Enforcement/Local-Law-Enforcement/Ohio-Missing-Persons/Ohio-Amber-Plan.

Sources: The Ohio State Highway Patrol, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children