HELENA — The Montana Department of Justice tested the statewide AMBER Alert system on Friday, January 13, and although DOJ officials said the test was successful on their end, an estimated one-third of phones in the state did not get the alert.
AMBER Alerts are sent out in situations when a child has been abducted under life-threatening circumstances, and there is enough information to request help from the public in searching for the child or suspect. When issued, it’s important that as many people as possible get the alert.
“The Washington child homicide study that was done indicated that a child that was abducted and murdered was murdered within the first three hours,” Montana Department of Justice AMBER Alert coordinator Jennifer Viets said. “So, if we’re looking for a child under life-threatening circumstances and we activate an amber alert, we really need help trying to find that child.”
In order to get AMBER Alerts to cell phones, the Montana DOJ sends the alert through the CodeRED system. CodeRED then sends a request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who then will send the alert to cell phone service providers to push it out through cell phone towers in the requested geographic region.
The part of the process that the Montana DOJ is responsible for went smoothly during the AMBER Alert test.
“We were really pleased with the outcome of the test,” Viets said. “We appreciate everybody’s participation.”
According to Montana DOJ statistics, 66% of phones in the state received the test alert. Viets said there are a number of reasons that the remaining one-third of phones did not get the alert.
The test alert was pushed out for 15 minutes, so if a phone was out of range of a cell tower during that 15-minute period, Viets said it would have missed the alert. In the case of an abducted child, that window is longer than 15 minutes.
“Typically we begin with a 24-hour period,” Viets said. “We’re hoping the child is found quickly, and most of the time, they are, but it can go for 24 hours.”
Another reason a phone might not have gotten the test AMBER Alert—settings. Viets said some phones have settings to block emergency alerts.
Finally, Viets said there could have just been a problem with the cell phone’s service provider.
“If someone did not get the alert, they should contact their carrier to try and determine why they didn’t get it, so we can make sure they get the next one,” Viets said.
Since Montana started pushing out AMBER Alerts in 2003, the alerts have been successful in locating abducted children. Viets said Montana has issued 54 AMBER Alerts for 76 children, and all 76 of those children have been located.
Montana’s most recent AMBER Alert was sent out in November 2021 for an infant that was inside a vehicle that was stolen. Viets said that child was rescued in less than 30 minutes after the AMBER Alert went out.
Along with AMBER Alerts getting sent to cell phones, the Montana DOJ partners with numerous organizations to get the alert sent out over television, radio, the Montana Department of Transportation’s 511 information line, and through Montana Lottery’s 12,000 kiosks across the state.
“We have multiple ways we try and push an AMBER Alert out, we don’t just rely on one way of doing it to try and make sure we get the public helping us search for an abducted child,” Viets said.
The Montana DOJ’s CodeRED system also pushes alerts directly to the free CodeRED app which people can download to their phones.
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The AMBER Alert program started in Texas in 1996 after 9-year old Amber Hagerman was abducted and murdered. In response to community concern, broadcasters in the area teamed up with law enforcement agencies to establish a program capable of quickly distributing information about child abductions to the general public. In memory of Amber, the program was called the AMBER Plan – America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response.
The criteria for the MT DOJ to issue an AMBER Alert are:
- There is reasonable belief by law enforcement that a child has been abducted or has disappeared under suspicious circumstances.
- The missing child is age 17 years or younger, or has a proven mental or physical disability.
- The law enforcement agency believes the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death.
- There is enough descriptive information about the victim and abduction for law enforcement to issue an AMBER Alert to assist in the recovery of the child.
- The child’s name and other critical data elements, including the Child Abduction flag, have been entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) computer.
The agency also sometimes a Missing/Endangered Person Alert (MEPA) to find runaways and missing children, children involved in custody disputes, and missing adults. The criteria for issuing a MEPA are:
- Do the circumstances fail to meet the criteria for an AMBER Alert?
- Is the person missing under unexplained, involuntary or suspicious circumstances?
- Is the person believed to be in danger because of age, health, mental or physical disability, or environmental or weather conditions; to be in the company of a potentially dangerous person; or is there some other factor that may put the person in peril?
- Is there information that could assist the public in the safe recovery of the missing person? The initial advisory will include any available information, like name, age, physical description, date of birth and where the person was last seen. It might also include information about whether the person has a health condition or physical or mental disability.
