January marks National Amber Alert Awareness Month

BECKLEY, WV (WOAY) – Amber Alerts are broadcast of information regarding an abducted child in hopes the child can be recovered as quickly as possible. January is National Amber Alert Awareness Month.

“There are very specific criteria to meet this alert. You have to know if the child was abducted, some information about the abductor, where it occurred at, what time it occurred at and what type of vehicle. Something that would benefit the public if that information was pushed out will help this person,” said Chief of Detectives David Allard.

Amber Alert honors the nine-year-old Amber Hagerman who was abducted while riding her bicycle in front of her family’s home in Arlington, Texas and found murdered two days later.

“A lot of the times the cases submitted for an Amber Alert and then it doesn’t meet the national criteria it turned down because the concern is very time that you have a missing person you immediately broadcast and everyone’s phones are going off, TVs are going off at some point people will start ignoring them and not taking them seriously,” said Allard.

According to the National Center for missing and exploited children the first three hours are the most critical when trying to locate a missing child.

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