![]() Were there racial disparities in who received an Amber Alert? If an Amber Alert request is denied, can a local police agency submit it again?Īs the investigation continues, new information can help a case qualify for an Amber Alert. In some cases, the alert was approved but the child was found before it could be issued or the child was believed to be in another state. The state Department of Justice was careful to point out that just because an alert was not issued, does not mean it was denied. The state issued 26 Amber Alerts - only 28% of those requested - from 2017 through 2022.Īnother 67 requests did not get an Amber Alert. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asked for recent data from the state Department of Justice. How many requests did not result in an Amber Alert? Often a request is denied because the case does not meet the specific criteria for an Amber Alert.Įven if an alert is denied, the state can offer other resources, such as sending a trained team to the local area to help with the search and set up a tipline. Can the state DOJ deny a local police agency’s request for an Amber Alert? The Wisconsin Department of Justice issues Amber Alerts based on requests from local police agencies. In 2021, 254 Amber Alerts were issued across the country compared to the more than 337,000 missing-child reports local police logged with the FBI - less than one alert for every 1,000 children, according to a new USA TODAY analysis. That same year, Milwaukee police received about 2,000 reports of missing children. The most Amber Alerts Wisconsin has ever issued in a single year was 11 in 2021. They fear the public will ignore or opt out of the alerts if they are used often or contain too little information. Officials say the criteria are strict to make sure it is only used in serious cases and that there is specific information to help find the child. The Amber Alert is not used for family abductions and runaways unless the child's life is in immediate danger. A law enforcement agency must have enough information about the child, suspect or vehicle to believe an immediate broadcast would help in locating the child.The child must be in danger of serious bodily harm or death.The missing person must be a child age 17 or younger.What are the criteria for an Amber Alert in Wisconsin? “If the child is not at home and we don’t where the child is and we don’t know if they’re in danger, we can’t issue that Amber Alert,” she said. “If they’re not in danger, if there’s no threat to the child, then it’s not going to meet the criteria,” said Melissa Marchant, Amber Alert coordinator for the state Department of Justice.Ī child’s age, by itself, is not enough to warrant an Amber Alert. The vast majority are found.Īmber Alerts have strict criteria, including that a child must be in danger of serious bodily harm or death. Thousands of children are reported missing every year in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, 57 Amber Alerts have been issued since 2003, when the program first came to the state. Learn more about the Alexis Patterson case by listening to the true-crime podcast Unsolved.Watch Video: AMBER Alerts help locate Wisconsin's missing childrenĪmber Alerts are a powerful tool to find missing children but are rarely used. Keyes died by suicide at a jail in Anchorage while awaiting trial in the Koenig case. "I just don't see him going in broad daylight to a school in a major city to abduct a child," Hallmark says on Unsolved. The truck Keyes owned was a vintage model, and all evidence points to him not using the truck in 2002, according to Hallmark. At the time Alexis disappeared, Keyes' daughter was about a year old. And Keyes had told the FBI after he had his own daughter, he could not target children anymore. Hallmark, an expert on Keyes, does not think so.įor one, Keyes stayed away from major cities. Could Keyes have abducted Alexis Patterson? In Milwaukee, some witnesses reportedly said a red truck was spotted near Hi-Mount School in the weeks before Alexis disappeared, and that a person inside the truck tried to take a child from the playground. ![]() Hallmark said Keyes did have a kill kit in Wisconsin. Did Keyes have other links to the Alexis Patterson case? Alexis Patterson was 7 when she disappeared as she was headed to school in May 2002.
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