The News Room [News Release]

Sheriff Contact: John Roach: 313-213-5162
Release Date: September 10, 2004

Sheriff hosts regional training session on high-tech missing child alert system --- 31 police agencies from 7 counties learn about notification program

Representatives from law enforcement agencies as far away as Jackson and Flint came to Wayne County last week to learn about a high-tech tool now available to assist them in the event a child turns up missing in their community. Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans, who was the first major law enforcement official in Michigan to implement the A Child is Missing [ACIM] telephone alert system, hosted the event at its training facility at Wayne County Community College in Van Buren Township.

More than 70 police officers in attendance saw the power of ACIM’s unique telephone alert system, which sends out thousands of customized pre-recorded phone messages to homes and businesses in the immediate vicinity of a reported disappearance or abduction. The non-profit organization, which is based in Florida, uses computer mapping and databases to retrieve the phone numbers, which can be dialed at the rate of 1,000 per minute.

Evans added the service to his Missing & Exploited Children’s Task Force in April, when he announced the Sheriff’s Rescue Network, which he has made available to all 43 police agencies in Wayne County. The Task Force is made up of five sheriff’s deputies and two Detroit Police officers whose sole responsibility is to find missing children.

“These phone messages contains specific information about the time and location of the child’s disappearance, as well as their description,” Evans said. “What that does is enlist an army of eyes and ears in the immediate area of the disappearance, which is a tremendous help to police.”

The results can be dramatic, according to ACIM trainer Ralph Caporale. “We had one instance where a man dropped off a young girl he had abducted because he saw people coming out of their homes, looking for the girl and calling her name.”

It’s that kind of result that Evans hopes will attract those law enforcement agencies that attended the training to sign up for the free services.

“Time is the most critical factor working against us when we are looking for a missing child,” Evans said. “Within a matter of a few minutes, we will have the ability to contact thousands of individuals who will become our eyes and ears to help us locate the child,” Evans said.

In Wayne County, approximately 3,000 children are reported missing each year. While most are either recovered or return on their own, the county’s Missing & Exploited Children’s Task Force, which is made up of Sheriff’s Deputies and Detroit Police officers, has safely recovered more than 350 missing children since it was created in October, 2003

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