Web posted January 14, 2008

Alaska Digest

Staff and Wire reports

JUNEAU - Communities across the country Sunday observed National AMBER Alert Awareness Day.

The AMBER Alert program is designed to assist in the recovery of abducted children.

Since Alaska implemented its AMBER Alert program in 2003, an activation has not occurred, but on Dec. 27, 2007, the Alaska State Troopers in Southeast assisted in the successful recovery of two boys who were abducted by their mother from foster care in Texas.

An AMBER Alert was issued in that case in Texas following the abduction. In mid-December, U.S. Marshals traveled to Southeast Alaska in an attempt to locate the abducted boys and their mother. There was a suspicion that the mother was taking the boys to Naukati, were the family had once resided.

Nationwide, there are 119 AMBER Alert plans, including 28 regional, 38 local, and statewide plans in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

To honor the program as vital to the safety of children, program administrators encourage wireless subscribers to sign up for Wireless AMBER Alerts at www.wirelessamberalerts.org.

The program, created after the 1996 abduction and murder of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, is a voluntary partnership between law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters and transportation agencies. It activates an urgent bulletin in the most serious child-abduction cases, allowing the public to become the eyes and ears of law enforcement.

The AMBER Alert program is coordinated on a national level by the U.S. Department of Justice.