Amber Alert
December 27th 2007 07:16
Amber Hagerman
For those who have never heard of the Amber Alert, it was born out of the tragic abduction of nine-year old Amber Hagerman. On January 12, 1996, Amber was riding her bike just two blocks away from her grandparent’s house with her five-year old brother, Ricky. Her brother left Amber to return to their grandparent’s house, because they were told to only be gone for one ride around the block. When he got back to the house his grandfather asked him to go back and get Amber. Ricky came back and said he couldn’t find her. Her grandfather, alarmed, jumped into his vehicle to find her. When he got where she was last seen riding her bike he was met by a police officer and the sight of Amber’s bike, without Amber. Keep in mind, just eight minutes had gone by since Amber went for her bike ride. Eight minutes.
"That was it," she said. "Eight minutes—eight minutes from the time she rode away on her bicycle until that man called 911. People have to know that this is how fast these things can happen" said Glenda Whitson, Amber’s Grandmother.
The man who called 911 was Jim Kevil. "I saw her riding up and down [the vacant lot]," he told reporters. "She was by herself. I saw this pickup. He pulled up, jumped out and grabbed her...When she screamed, I figured the police ought to know about it, so I called them. I wish I had known more. I done all I could do." Police think it was a crime of opportunity; he (the abductor) waited until Amber’s brother left her alone and in those mere seconds he snatched her.
Her body was found four days later in a creek bed. Her throat had been slashed. Police say she was kept alive for a few days before she was murdered. Her killer remains at large and the case is still open. This January will mark the twelve-year anniversary of her abduction.
After Amber’s body was found a man called into a local radio station and made a suggestion: “When a child is abducted and each minute matters, why can't the police and the media get together to inform the public with the same urgency of, say, a weather warning about a tornado or a hurricane?” Texas adopted it and the US Department of Justice followed suit. It is now utilized in all fifty U.S. states.
Glenda Whitson says of the Amber Alert: "My heart drops down to my shoes," she says, "because I know just what those people (the parents) are going through." "It feels good when some child is brought home and our baby helped," says Mrs. Whitson. "You just look up to heaven and say, 'You did it again, baby'...Of course I know sometimes it doesn't turn out good, but the Amber Alert gives them something more to go on from the very start."
Well… she did it again.
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