The News Room [News Release]

Sheriff announces new immediate alert system to help locate missing children --- Thousands of phone calls to be made in area surrounding disappearance

Sheriff Warren C. Evans unveiled today a powerful new tool his department will use to help locate children immediately after they are reported missing in Wayne County.

The new “Sheriff’s Rescue Network” will involve thousands of automated phone calls to homes and businesses in the area immediately surrounding the location the child was last seen. Evans said that the new system can make 1,000 calls in about 60 seconds and will cover a five-mile radius from the address of the disappearance.

“ 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.

Evans said that the recorded message will include information as to the child’s last known whereabouts, as well as a description of the child and any information regarding a possible abductor, if one is believed to be involved.

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 approximately 450 open cases.

The Missing & Exploited Children’s Task Force handles primarily cases in the city of Detroit, but Evans is encouraging police departments across the county to utilize the new system.

“ This is an extremely powerful tool and I hope that every police agency in the county would advantage of it if the need arises,” Evans said.

Because many of the missing children cases handled by this unit involve teenage truants and runaways, Evans said the new system would be used primarily for younger children under the age of ten.

“ When a young child comes up missing, you know it’s not a matter of them being defiant or wanting to exert their will,” he said. “The odds are much higher in these cases that the child either has gotten lost or been abducted.”

Evans added that the system is already in place and available as soon as it is needed.

The phone calling service for the Sheriff’s Alert Network is being provided through “A Child is Missing,” [www.achildismissing.org], a nonprofit agency that also serves the states of Ohio, Alaska, Florida and Rhode Island. The program, which is credited with finding more than 50 missing children nationwide, is free to law enforcement agencies. The costs of the program are offset by private and corporate donations, as well as law enforcement forfeiture funds.

Evans said that when a resident receives a call from the Sheriff’s Rescue Network, the recorded message will include information about whom to call with any tips.

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