El Paso Police Department talks regarding history and requirements for Amber Alerts
EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- Following the activation of an Amber Alert and the recovery of a 2-year-old kidnapped child, the El Paso Police Department spoke with ABC-7 regarding the history and requirements needed to trigger an Amber Alert.
EPPD told ABC-7 Amber Alerts were originally known as the "Maria Alert" in El Paso. This had started in April of 2001, when all law enforcement agencies in the El Paso community, along with members of the media, signed a memorandum of understanding to work together following the activation of an alert when a child had gone missing.
Police told us they had named it the "Maria Alert" in honor of Maria De Los Angeles Zavala, who had been kidnapped back in 1994 and, at the time, had been the last victim of kidnapping in the city.
In September 2002, the state legislature passed a statewide Amber Alert system, the Texas Amber Alert Network. Under this, El Paso changed the Maria Alert to the Amber Alert to be in conjunction with the state and the national alert.
Javier Sambrano, Sergeant with the El Paso Police Department, told ABC-7 that media and law enforcement have always been crucial with the Amber Alerts, as they would help distribute information to the public when technology was more limited in the past.
"What was used at that time was actually that the news would be breaking into programing. So they would be immediately notified by telephone, all of our media partners. At that moment we were still using fax machines. So there would be a fax that would go to all of the media outlets,” said Sambrano.
In order to trigger an Amber Alert, El Paso Police told us there are multiple requirements that need to be met before an alert is activated.
First, there has to be an investigation when a child is reported missing that shows that the child could be in danger. Additionally, there has to be information about the abduction and the victim that can be disseminated to the public. Not only this, but any information of the child, along with critical data elements, are entered into the National Crime Information System (NCIC) system.
“A parental abduction, typically they would not constitute for an Amber Alert. However, if that abduction took place while there was some type of violent act that took place, then it would qualify for an Amber Alert. Which is part of what we had yesterday, where we had a family violence incident that then led to that kidnaping of a two and a half-year-old child. And so that is part of the reason that we ended up having. And it did qualify for an Amber Alert," said Sambrano.
