May 2006

On Friday, September 8, 2006, the MOAA will sponsor its second annual Gold Outing fundraiser at the Raccoon Golf Club off Rt.161 east of New Albany, Ohio. Funds raised from this event are to help pay for interested area police DARE officers to receive special training to teach children personal safety and abduction avoidance.

May 2006

May 25, 2006 was Natl. Missing Children's Day and Mid Ohio Amber Alert helped promote child safety awareness region wide including appearing on area TV and radio broadcast interviews. The Mid Ohio Amber Alert organization in conjunction with the United States Postal Service helped unveil the new Amber Alert postage stamp (see same on the website cover page) now available at all area Post Offices. Also being distributed to Post Office customers are the MOAA's small windshield static sticker that tells people what to do when a child is missing or abducted. MOAA is seeking corporate or individual donors to help pay for over 4 million static stickers to be distributed statewide in 2007.

January 2006

RadioShack and Cingular Wireless have launched a nationwide campaign to
sign up 1 million new Wireless AMBER Alerts(TM) subscribers in 2006.
RadioShack will help customers sign up from RadioShack's in-store
Internet Centers in nearly 5,000 neighborhood locations or directly from
their wireless handsets.

Wireless AMBER Alerts enable wireless customers to sign up to receive
free, geographically specific Wireless AMBER Alerts text messages when a
child has been abducted in their area.

December 2005

The Mid Ohio Amber Alert Board which holds quarterly board meetings, held its annual board meeting at Highbanks Metro Park near Powell, Ohio. The Board elected the following officers:

President: Clark Donley

1st Vice President - Mike Rankin

2nd Vice President - Chief Gary Vest

Treasurer - Tiffiney Hatem

Secretary - John Einstein

September 2005

Mid Ohio Amber Alert enjoyed success at its first Annual Golf Outing on Friday, Sept. 9, 2005 in Granville, Ohio. The modestly priced event raised netted over $3500 and was well attended. MOAA plans to hold this event next year.

August 2005

Mid Ohio Amber Alert kicked off its back to school child safety awareness month with a press conference at the Columbus Police Academy in Columbus, Ohio. MOAA Co-Founder Mike Rankin and Deputy Police Chief Antone Lanatta announced this important child safety/ public awareness initiative involving area police agencies and school districts. The event also highlighted the 30,000 unit distribution of the MOAA's new windshield static sticker containing emergency phone numbers and other child safety information.

August 2, 2005

Golf Outing

July 31, 2005

Mid-Ohio AMBER Alert Launches Back-To-School Campaign

April 7, 2005

Mid Ohio Amber Alert announced plans for producing and distributing a new Amber Alert windshield decal by Coordinator Mike Rankin at the State of Ohio Amber Steering Committee Meeting. The decals are for use in the vehicles of public safety, business and private citizen motor vehicles. They contain emergency phone numbers, website information and the 1-877-AMBER OH TOLL FREE NUMBER for reporting sightings of child abduction suspects, suspect vehicles and their victims. The decal project was successfully managed by Mid Ohio Amber Alert Board member Leslie Cox of Farmer's Insurance.

March 11, 2005

Mid Ohio Amber Alert (MOAA) hosted national child protection advocate Mark Klaas who addressed the MOAA Board at their quarterly meeting. Mr. Klaas appeared before the Board and on numerous local TV and radio stations to help promote the Amber Alert system. He also spoke about the success and effectiveness of his www.beyondmissing.com system for helping notify the public within a 200 mile radius of a child abduction site. Mr. Klaas is the father of Polly Klaas who was abducted in California in October of 1993. Mr. Klaas helped organize at that time one of the largest missing child searches in America. Polly was later found murdered and her abductor was caught, convicted and is currently on death row.

Mr. Klaas turned a personal tragedy into many successful initiatives to protect children and to improve how the public is notified when a child is missing. He helped put in play the nationally recognized child locater system now used by hundreds of law enforcement agencies nationwide and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He also helped found Klass Kids Foundation and www.beyondmissing.com . Mr. Klaas also helped pass into law in California and keep in place, the "three strikes and your out" criminal sentencing law that sends three time convicted felons to prison for life under certain circumstances. Mr. Klaas is often in contact with the parents and family members of recently abducted or missing children in an effort to help counsel and support them during their time of greatest need.

Mr. Klaas also provides a search support service that can deploy anywhere in the U.S. on short notice to help local law enforcement and the families of missing children to conduct searches even after other search efforts have failed to find the missing child.

September 14, 2004

The U.S. Dept. of Justice successfully hosted its second annual Amber Alert Conference in Columbus, Ohio Sept. 8-10, 2004. Local citizen and hero Paul Bursey received the Governor's thanks and commendation for his efforts in calling in and helping recover four (4) abducted children on July 26, 2004 in Columbus, Ohio. His actions were based on an Amber Alert message that flashed on an overhead Ohio Dept. of Transportation (ODOT) freeway sign board over I-70 westbound.

MOAA Board member Farouk Aboukar, an ODOT engineer responsible for posting all Amber Alert messages on ODOT signs throughout Ohio, posted the abductor suspect's auto license plate number to the Amber Alert message on the freeway signs. This action was instrumental in helping Mr. Bursey and local police in recovering the four children. Prior sign board alert protocols did not call for listing the license number of the suspect vehicle (they do now thanks to Mr. Aboukar's quick thinking which was especially helpful July 26th as area radio stations did not receive the alert information). Several weeks prior to the conference, Mr. Bursey received the Mid Ohio Amber Alert Board's "Good Samaritan Award" for his efforts on July 26th.

August 2004

MIKE RANKIN, Of Counsel with the Brunner Firm Co., LPA and Co-Founder of Mid Ohio Amber Alert, presented Paul Bursey, an area resident, with its Good Samaritan Award for helping recover four abducted children last month in Columbus; and, its Outstanding Service Award to outgoing board member Terri Peaks of the Ohio Attorney General's office at its August Board meeting (see www.midohioamberalert.org ).

March 10, 2004

Mid Ohio Amber Alert
Law Enforcement NEWS
March 10, 2004

The Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) now has an updated standard that specifically references Amber Alerts. The new standard reads as follows:

41.2.7 "The agency has a written directive concerning missing children, including runaway, abandonment, abducted or other missing status that includes the following:

a. a policy statement covering missing or unidentified children;

b. criteria for supervisory notification

c. information required for immediate notification of appropriate inter- and intra-agency coordination;

d. criteria for activation of Amber Alert Systems or other public notification;

e. responsibilities of call takers, first responders, supervisors, and investigators; and

f. follow-up responsibilities."

Agencies may want to review policies and procedures in light of this change. The Mid Ohio Amber Alert web page contains protocols, activation forms and other information that may assist in meeting this standard. To obtain the password for the “law enforcement’ link, contact a board member, or e-mail MOAA.

February 2004

NEW MID OHIO AMBER ALERT INITIATIVE TO IMPROVE AMBER ALERT INVESTIGATION AND ACTIVATION TIME FOR BOTH AMBER, NEAR

AMBER ALERTS AND MISSING PERSONS

At its February 2004 quarterly board meeting, the Mid Ohio Amber Alert organization (MOAA) which was initially formed in March 2001, agreed to consider/take under advisement an initiative to help promote the development of a comprehensive web based Amber Alert Investigation/Activation System or “AAIAS”. MOAA seeks to collaborate and work with other public and private entities interested in developing this system or something like it. It is only a concept and not yet developed and deployed. Input from all sources is solicited and will help make this concept a better one thereby improving the chances of recovering abducted and missing children.

When a child is abducted, time is of the essence. National statistics show that every hour after the first two hours following a stranger abduction, the chances for a live recovery diminish substantially. Current Amber Alert methods are very form and paper intensive which slows the time down for issuing an appropriate alert. Instead of taking one hour plus to issue an alert, AAIAS could reduce that to 20-30 minutes depending on each situation’s particular circumstances. The AAIAS system when developed is intended to be a user friendly web based system designed to permit first responding law enforcement officials to immediately access the system from a web compatible police mobile data terminal and/or laptop system in police vehicles, at a police station or in the field. The AAIAS will queue the officer through a series of critical path questions in order to develop sufficient information to:

Determine if an Amber or near Amber Alert is warranted based on information, evidence and eyewitness accounts developed at the scene (a near Amber Alert is where news media is advised a child is missing under circumstances suggesting foul play but no suspect, suspect vehicle or abduction is evident). It will help officers sort out information to determine that the missing child is not in a life threatening situation or the result of a late from school, run away or other similar situation.
Permit immediate scanning of a photo of the missing child or children at the scene along with entry of key field developed information for immediate transmission to other police agencies; and to news media outlets via the Emergency Alert System (EAS) whether done through the Law Enforcement Automated Data System (LEADS) or other alert medium.
Assist the officer in developing information for the some 7-8 required forms to be filled out. It will automatically fill out and send the required local, state and national forms required to activate other child find systems or be completed for other entities when a child is missing. Those forms may include but not be limited to: the National Crime Information Center (NCIC); A Child is Missing which does reverse phone calling to designated geographic areas to alert citizens on missing children/persons; National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC); the State Attorney General’s Office & Missing Children’s Clearing house; LEADS; trucker alerts; and, pager and cell phone users who have signed up for missing children alerts along with any other entities.
Speed up the investigation of abducted children by helping identify within a set radius around the abduction site, the location of any sexual offenders, parolees, probationers or other criminal suspects who may be prime suspects or responsible for or have information on the missing child’s whereabouts.

MOAA is seeking to receive input to better promote, design and develop this or other similar initiatives to help us make this groundbreaking technology available to all police agencies in Mid Ohio, Ohio and America. Initial response from local elected officials, front line patrol officers, police command officers and citizens to this “concept” or a variant thereof has been very positive. Like all work in this area, it is a “work in progress” requiring regular review, improvement and upgrading to meet current challenges in recovering abducted and missing children.

Mid Ohio Amber News

AMBER ALERTS AND MISSING PERSONS