Police join missing child alert service

By Martin B. Cassidy
Staff Writer

August 27, 2007

The Greenwich Police Department has adopted a new computer system which blankets neighbors, businesses and other community members with automated phone alerts to help find missing children or senior citizens.

Police have joined the Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based A Child is Missing Inc., which can deploy thousands of recorded messages to alert communities to be on the lookout when a child or resident has gone missing, Sgt. John Slusarz said.

The service is free, Slusarz said, and gives police an additional tool besides the Amber Alert system, a more widespread alert reserved for when there is strong suspicion kidnapping or foul play could be involved.

"There are many times you can't use the Amber Alert, although it is a great tool too," Slusarz said.

When police confirm a missing person report, an investigating officer contacts the Florida organization to provide relevant information including the name of the missing person, their physical description, the last place and time they were seen, and what they were wearing, Slusarz said.

A taped message is then made, and a technician then deploys up to 1,000 calls per minute to a selected area in the vicinity where the person disappeared, Slusarz said.

"Most of the time when a child is reported missing we find out they've gone to a friend's house and are fine," Slusarz said. "This gives us an excellent tool to ask people to help us to find missing children and determine when there is truly a problem or not."

Other Connecticut police departments, including Danbury, Derby, Wilton, Ansonia, and New Britain have already adopted the program, as well as the Connecticut State Police, Claudia Corrigan, vice-president of A Child is Missing Inc., said.

Connecticut law enforcement departments have used the service 42 times since 2005, Corrigan said, resulting in four missing children being found when alerts were issued in Waterford, Niantic, Old Saybrook, and Derby.

Most of the organization's funding comes from the federal government, Corrigan said.

The system can also be used to report jailbreaks, and to notify residents when a sexual predator has moved into a neighborhood.

Connecticut State Police used the program to find a missing 8-year-old boy in Niantic last November, Trooper William Tate, a spokesman for the Connecticut State Police said.

In that incident, the missing boy was found in less than an hour after a resident who received the automated message spotted him walking through backyards in his neighborhood, Tate said.

"It's been another one of our tools in the last couple of years," Tate said. "This is a way to immediately reach the public when time is critical and get several hundred or thousand more eyes to help us."