Short Stuff: Amber Alerts | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. hey and welcome to the short stuff I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry sitting. in for Dave which makes everything. normal that's right uh Chuck yes we're. going to do this like a old school stuff. you should know episode oh I have a. feeling I know what's coming have you. ever gotten an amber. alert yes I have uh there is nothing. more sort of um earsplitting and.

Troublesome immediately Troublesome and. upsetting than getting that claxon Amber. Alert uh all of a sudden at your. nightstand coming through your. smartphone yeah that's a a actually a. little older than I thought I think. those started in 2012 wireless emergency. alerts yeah um and yes you can turn them. off but if you turn them off you are. shedding a slight amount of your. Humanity perhaps uh although there's a. debate about whether they they're being. over used or not but one of the wireless.

emergency alerts that you can get is an. AMBER Alert specifically there's other. ones we'll mention at the end of the. episode but the Amber Alert is like the. OG and it has a terrible um tragic. origin story to it uh amber actually is. an acronym for America's missing colon. of all things broadcast emergency. response Amber but it's also the. namesake of a girl I think a 9-year-old. named Amber hegerman who who lived in.

Arlington Texas in. 1996 that's right and we should probably. tell you what an amber alert is uh. before we get into that sad story. because if you're from abroad you don't. know that an Amber warning is when a. child has gone missing and they send out. basically uh we'll see it's operated by. the state but essentially almost always. ends up being a. nationwide um alert sent to um Highway. Billboards that are digital sometimes.

Lottery signs that are digital and could. be changed um your cell phone on the. television and they just they get it out. in all these ways that hey uh we're. issuing this now because you know. usually it's like this child is in this. kind of car and on a highway and if. everyone keeps our their eyes open we. may get lucky here if everyone really. pays attention for the next few hours. that was a great definition of the Amber. Alert yeah I mean sort of went off on my.

own thing but I think everyone knows. that the likelihood of finding an. abducted uh person or a missing person. gets less and less as time goes on so. those those first that first hour is. just so critical even if they can get. out a warning that says there's a Ford. Taurus with this license plate and this. kid is in it so keep your eyes peeled. exactly um all right well thanks for. setting me up for telling the tragic. story of Amber hegerman but I kind of. have to now yeah um back in January of.

1996 Amber who was like I said a. nine-year-old from Arlington Texas had. gotten a bike for Christmas and was. riding it around near her grandmother's. house and there was an abandoned wind. Dixie uh grocery store uh the parking. lot of which she was riding around uh. riding her bike around and there was a. local man a 78-year-old man named Jimmy. keville who was watching a ride or bike. and Jimmy keville apparently is the lone. witness to Amber's abduction he said. that a a black pickup truck showed up.

and a white or Hispanic man in his 20s. or 30s got out and took Amber forcibly. with him and um there was a nationwide. search for Amber I'm not exactly sure. what it was about that case that that. got everybody but her her disappearance. launched a nationwide search pre- Amber. Alert um and tragically three I think. three days later a dog walker found her. body in a creek um because of the the.

the need it showed to coordinate to get. the word out um the the Dallas Fort. Worth area Police Department's law. enforcement got together with the. broadcasters from the area and said hey. let's figure out like a basic way to get. the word out for abducted children like. ASAP let's figure out a standardized way. to do that and they came up with the. Amber Alert I think within 10 months. they had the the system up and running. yeah which is a great thing uh sadly. they uh is a case that remains unsolved.

but let's take a break and we can get. back and talk a little bit about the. specifics of how they work right after. [Music]. this all right so I mentioned that it. was up to the the state which is true.

every state has their own uh criteria. for issuing Amber Alerts and how it goes. down uh but the doj the Department of. Justice did Issue guidelines uh about. recommendations that kind of break down. into five categories uh for different. reasons uh the first one is law. enforcement has a reasonable belief that. a child was abducted uh this one's. pretty obvious on what that means um the. second one is law enforcement believes a. child will suffer serious bodily harm or. worse.

and the reason they have these criteria. is because there are missing children. all the time and and not all of them in. fact very few of them get the actual. Amber Alert right so this is to to sort. of qualify for that specific case right. and the bodily harm one is um the need. for just a timely response if they have. information where they believe you know. and a lot of times it could be like a. relative that has them that's you know. very upset or has made threats and. things like that yeah but I think the.

the Crux or the underlying gist of Amber. Alerts is abduction by a stranger. because that's the greatest danger. typically that an abducted child can be. in there's also a standard that Most. states have adopted 17 or younger. they're like let's not put. pronouncements on what's a child or not. we can all just basically agree anybody. under 18 is a child and if they meet. this criteria then we're going to issue. an amber alert and then the last part is. um and this is a step that not everybody. takes but it seems very critical you.

want to um take that information that. you send out on the amber alert and. enter it in the National Crime. information center system flag it as a. child abduction and all of a sudden the. Amber Alert will go from a local or a. state or a regional thing all the way. out to National like Nationwide law. enforcement all around the country will. have an alert that this kid has been. abducted so be on the lookout for them. but not all not all states have that as. part of their criteria contingency plan. which is surprising yeah for sure um.

there was one we missed there was uh the. other criteria is there's enough detail. about the appearance and the abduction. uh of the child so um they won't issue a. Amber Alert if it's just like like I. don't know what my kid was wearing I. don't know where she last was I really. have no information they have to have. pretty concrete information about what. the child was was wearing at the time. what they look like at the time and. where they might have been adducted and. especially if if there's anything like.

you know it was a black pickup truck or. it was uh it was definitely my. brother-in-law and this is his car and. license plate number right um and on the. 17 and younger thing because it's. different states some states may have a. guideline that it's let's say 15 uh but. they agree to honor um the rule of the. state that the abduction took place in. yeah if the if the Amber Alert makes it. across state lines yeah um so there's uh. I said that some people are are critical.

of not necessarily Amber Alerts but just. alerts in general because if you're. woken up at 3:00 a.m. whether it's an. amber alert a silver alert which is used. um to alert people of a missing person. with like Dementia or Alzheimer's purple. alert is one for an adult with cognitive. impairment who's gone missing um it's. all the same to you so there's a a part. of issuing Amber Alerts and one of the. reasons why the criteria is so strict is. you don't want to get people used to.

those alerts you want it to be a big. deal when your phone goes off with an. amber alert at 3 in the morning that. everybody takes the time to wake up and. look um that's that's crucial it's a. crucial part of it because if everybody. becomes desensitized to it that's a. problem on the other hand there are. people who are like there's a lot of. people who need to to um have their. their the fact that they're missing be. alerted out to everybody that just don't. meet the criteria the amber alert and so.

there's other kinds of alerts I I saw. one's everbridge alert which is um it's. cases where children have been um. targeted or um abducted or gone missing. but they don't meet the criteria of the. Amber like say say you know for a fact. the child was abducted and that they're. probably in danger but you don't have. like you said the description of what. they were wearing or what kind of car. they were forced into they you might not. had issue amber alert and in fact in.

2020 there were. 365,000. entries that year in the National Crime. information center system for missing. kids but 200 of them met the criteria. for Amber Alerts to be issued so there's. a weird balancing act that you have to. go through that I don't think anybody's. figured out yet but that's why that. criteria is supposed to be so rigidly. adhered to yeah and from what I've read. it's not like um there's any.

um it's just about the alert not like. necessarily how hard the cops may be. working to try and find this missing kid. it's just a very specific criteria. because I think uh when it meets that. criteria there that means there's a a. decent likelihood that if you act fast. in the next few hours like I said at the. very beginning then somebody might see. something yeah that that could really. help because we have all this. information um I feel like most of the.

ones I've seen have been family members. which is interesting I had had no idea. that it was supposedly for stranger. abduction but um they've done a lot of. good work from uh 1996 to. 2023 uh amber specifically Amber Alerts. have contributed to uh the recovery of. uh. 1,186 children and then other Wireless. uh emergency alerts uh rescued. 165 and you know over that that may not.

seem like a high number over that uh. period of time but if it's literally the. success of a single signal being sent. out finding 1186 children that's that's. amazing yeah one of the stories I've. seen bandied about um by uh Pro Amber. Alert people is basically everybody um. that there was like a kid who had an. amber alert miss or issued and was. recovered within like less than 30. minutes because of the Amber Alert so it. definitely does work I mean if they're. only issuing 200 a year and they and in.

seven years they manage to recover. recover almost 1,200 or 1300 children. that's a pretty good track record really. yeah for sure uh you got anything else I. got nothing else keep that alert on it's. it's distressing but and if you're you. know if you're on the road at the time. and you see something like that like do. your do your part that's what they're. looking for is people to really keep. their eyes peeled and be vigilant yeah. and if you're a state legislator Maybe. maybe take the time to really sit there.

and see if your state has too many or is. issuing too many of these things and is. in danger of um desensitizing the public. cuz you do not want to do that and uh of. course since I just spoke directly as. state legislators that means short stuff. is. out stuff you should know is a. production of iHeart radio for more. podcasts iHeart Radio visit the ihart. radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you. listen to your favorite shows. [Music].