Missing & Exploited Children
Sheriff & Detroit
Police form joint task force dedicated to finding missing & exploited
kids --- “Amber Unit” to tackle 1,300-case
backlog in Wayne County --- Agencies to use successful Fugitive
Apprehension team
as model
Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans and Detroit Police
Chief Jerry Oliver today announced the formation their own “Amber
Unit”, a new joint task force dedicated to finding and rescuing
the hundreds of children listed as missing in Wayne County. Currently
there are more than 1,300 open juvenile cases in Wayne County,
where approximately 3,000 children were reported missing in 2002.
In many of these cases, the kids fall into patterns of drug use,
crime, and forced prostitution or are killed.
“Too often we are seeing cases of kids who are abused, exploited
or murdered because not enough resources have been available to
find them,” said Oliver. “The creation of this task
force represents a renewed commitment on the part of these two
agencies to the safety of our children our highest priority.”
To form the Amber Unit, two Sheriff’s Office
officers and two Detroit Police officers who currently work on
foster care and neglect /abuse cases will begin working together.
[The two Sheriff’s officers will continue their work involving
foster children, as is required under their current funding source.]
An additional Sheriff’s sergeant and two deputies will join
these four officers, bringing the unit to a total of seven full-time
officers. The salaries of the three new officers will be funded
through a $297,000 Byrne Memorial Fund grant recently awarded to
Wayne County by Governor Jennifer Granholm, specifically for this
purpose.
Pooling knowledge and resources
As the national AMBER Alert system, for which this new unit is
named, has shown, the most important aspect of finding any missing
person is communication among police agencies, not only regionally,
but nationally. Evans said that by joining these sections of
the state’s two largest law enforcement agencies the Amber
unit’s collective knowledge base will grow immediately,
as will its ability to deploy the various tentacles of the law
enforcement community across numerous states.
As an example, Evans cited the recent case of Justin Smith of
Taylor, a four-year old who was the subject of a parental abduction
case last June. In that case, sheriff’s deputies worked with
agencies from various states and eventually tracked the family
to Galveston, Texas, where Justin was safely recovered.
First things first
Although records show that there are more than 1,300 open cases
involving missing juveniles, the reality is likely far different.
One of the first orders of business for the new unit will be
to reconcile these records with reality.
“We know that many of the children listed as missing are
no longer children because their cases have been open for so long,” Evans
said. “We need to clean up that list so we can have reliable
information. Otherwise, we’ll just be spinning our wheels.”
Using the FAST model
Chief Oliver said that the blueprint he and Sheriff Evans established
earlier this year with the creation of the Fugitive Apprehension
Services Team [FAST] was the model for the Amber Unit. Since
the two agencies joined forces and doubled the number of officers
assigned to fugitive apprehension, the rate of arrests have quadrupled
over recent years.
“We have seen from the tremendous success of the FAST team
that increasing the number of officers dedicated to a single mission
and having them work collaboratively multiplies their productivity,” Oliver
said. “In this case, we believe that combining our officers’ experience
and efforts will result in a much higher rate of children being
returned to their families or other appropriate custody. ”
Oliver added that once the list gets purged of old or closed files,
Amber Unit officers will begin to develop a database the can be
link with other resources, including the national Center for Missing & Exploited
Children.
History of AMBER Alert
The AMBER Alert System began in 1996 when Dallas-Fort Worth broadcasters
teamed with local police to develop an early warning system to
help find abducted children. AMBER stands for America's Missing:
Broadcast Emergency Response and was created as a legacy to 9-year-old
Amber Hagerman, who was kidnaped while riding her bicycle in Arlington,
Texas, and then brutally murdered. Other states, including Michigan
have set up their own AMBER Alert systems.
Stats
3,000 juveniles reported missing in Wayne County in 2002
Approx. 1,342 open files of missing person under the age of 17
- 1,135 are Detroit cases
- 207 are out-county
Child rescues to date in 2003
188 [WCSD]
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