West Virginia signs up for free mass alert system for missing persons
The Mercer County Sheriff’s Department and the Princeton Police Department are now using the A Child Is Missing Alert Program which uses computer mapping programs to place up to a thousand calls a minute to residents and businesses near where a person is reported missing; the call contains a message that details the missing person’s description, last known location, and other critical information; the A Child Is Missing Alert program is a free service provided to law enforcement agencies
Two local police departments in West Virginia recently signed up for a mass alert warning system to aid in the search for missing children, the elderly, and others.
The Mercer County Sheriff’s Department and the Princeton Police Department have signed up for the A Child Is Missing Alert Program which uses computer mapping programs to place up to a thousand calls a minute to residents and businesses near where a person is reported missing.
The call contains a message that details the missing person’s description, last known location, and other critical information.
Mercer County is sparsely populated over large areas and is heavily forested making it difficult to track down children or elderly people with Alzheimer’s or dementia who may have wandered off and become lost.
The key in these situations is speed, and the A Child Is Missing Alert system allows local law enforcement officials to immediately engage thousands of people to help aid their search efforts within minutes.
The Bluefield Daily Telegraph reports that individuals are more likely to report a person they see walking along the side of the road or unattended children if they have been previously notified of a missing person.
The A Child Is Missing Alert program is a free service provided to law enforcement agencies and was created by a Florida based non-profit organization.
According to their website, a child goes missing every forty seconds in the United States.
