D/FW Amber Plan


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Additional Information

Police Procedures
For police to activate The Amber Plan, two criteria must be met:

1) The child should be 17 years of age or younger, or with a proven mental or physical disability, and
2) Police must believe the child is in danger of serious bodily harm or death.

These guidelines are in place to make it clear when an activation should and should not happen. If both criteria are not met, The Amber Alert should not beactivated. Police and broadcasters in North Texas have agreed that The Amber Plan should not be activated for "runaways". While each case must be judged individually, most "child custody" situations also fall outside the criteria.

Setting Up Your System:
1) Incorporate a standardized form into your department's child abduction protocol. Police should have information that will be helpful to the public. For example, knowing what the child was wearing or a description of the car possibly used in the abduction.

2) Provide confidential fax numbers to officers who will coordinate communication with radio stations. If you prefer, pre-program the fax number into your department's fax machine for easy reference in the future.

3) Distribute a test fax to the primary radio stations to confirm the system is in place. Be sure to indicate on the standardized form that your department is conducting a test. Request the primary radio stations conduct a call back to your department.

Upon confirmation of a child abduction in your area:
1) Determine and prepare information for public distribution. The information should be written in clearly understood terms, not in police "shorthand".

2) Designate department contact for radio stations. Include name and phone number on standardized form.

3) Fax the document to your designated primary stations.

4) The primary radio stations will immediately call your department to confirm the information. Upon confirmation, the radio stations will immediately proceed with distributing the information to the other participating radio stations, via the Emergency Alert System.

5) Subsequent updates from your department can be provided to the primary stations at your discretion. Upon closure of the child abduction case distribute a final bulletin to the primary radio stations.