AMBER Feature

Cover Story: New Year, New Tech

As 2024 unfolds, an array of innovative technology awaits use by law enforcement. Our experts share the tools they believe should be your radars.

Mexican authorities had baby Angela in their caring hands 30 hours after the first Alerta Amber was activated.

Front Lines: It Takes a Village

After her parents were murdered, a missing infant is found safe thanks to Mexico’s media, the public, and AMBER Alert Coordinators—who acted during a conference on protecting children with U.S. DOJ and AATTAP leaders in Monterrey

Photo of Dr. Noelle Hunter with her daughter, Maayimuna “Muna”

Faces: Alabama Mother is Champion for Change

After years of advocacy—and fighting to get her daughter home safely from Mali, West Africa—Dr. Noelle Hunter is turning to research to further highlight the harrowing issue of international parental child abduction

Photo of the parent-authors are shown with NCJTC/AATTAP staff and OJJDP Administrator Elizabeth Ryan and her team.

Cover Story: The (New!) ‘Family Survival Guide’

Hear the powerful stories and lessons law enforcement can learn from the eight parents of missing children who helped us create the new multimedia edition of “When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide.”

The parent-authors shared advice for searching parents and law enforcement during video filming sessions earlier this year in Salt Lake City.

About the ‘Family Survival Guide’ Parent-Authors

Yvonne Ambrose is the mother of Desiree Robinson, who was lured away from home, then exploited and enslaved through sex trafficking. Desiree was murdered December 24, 2016, as she fought to escape the perpetrator to whom her trafficker first sold her, primarily via the now-defunct Backpage site. Yvonne vowed to be her daughter’s voice, in […]

"Family Survival Guide" parent-author Ahmad Rivazfar, right, with Ed Smart (father of kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart) during their annual cross-country bike rides to raise awareness about missing children.

Advocacy Highlights: ‘Family Survival Guide’ Parents

1994 Patty Wetterling championed passage of the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, the first U.S. law to mandate that each state maintain a sex offender registry. 1996 Patty Wetterling helped accomplish: • President Bill Clinton’s executive memorandum requiring federal agencies to receive and post missing children’s fliers in their […]

Photo showing blurred images of walking college students

On the Front Lines: A Textbook Case

Swift action to locate a missing New York college student, who was found unharmed in Mexico, proves the importance of connections and collaboration—even when it crosses the U.S.

Group photo at the AMBER in Indian Country Toolkit Presentation in Wisconsin October 12, 2023

Six Wisconsin Tribes Receive AMBER in Indian Country Technology Toolkits

The AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP)/AMBER in Indian Country (AIIC) Initiative recently presented Technology Toolkits to six Wisconsin Tribal Nations during a quarterly Native American Drug and Gang Initiative Task Force Advisory Board meeting at the Oneida Nation Police Headquarters in Oneida.

‘Brave, Resourceful and Dedicated’

  Tony Godwin, an Instructional Associate with the AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP) and veteran detective with the Garland Police Department—is one of seven North Texas Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force members who were honored with the Attorney General’s Special Commendation Award during the 40th annual National Missing Children’s Day […]

CART training in Puerto Rico photo collage

CART training in Puerto Rico, overseen by AATTAP, wins high praise

AATTAP team members visited Puerto Rico in January to conduct “Rescue, Recovery, and Reunification” field-training exercises for Child Abduction Response Teams (CART) and other members of law enforcement. “The CART training was a success, and for the first time ever we had a member of Congress at our training,” said AATTAP Administrator Janell Rasmussen.

Upcoming Training Opportunities from AATTAP

Live Webinar: What you can do to Prevent Child Abduction April 4, 2024 | 1:00-2:30 PM Central Standard Time AMBER Alert Activation Best Practices April 30, 2024 | Pearland, TX | 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM Child Abduction Response Team (CART) Training April 23-25, 2024 | Johnson City, TN | 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM […]

Sergeant Patrick Beumler, Child Abduction Response Team expert

CART Readiness? Check.

CART coordination expert Sergeant Patrick Beumler provides some key questions for agencies that currently have a CART or are considering forming one.

Driven to Succeed

The most effective Child Abduction Response Teams (CARTs) have “the right personnel, preparation, and leadership support,” says Sergeant Patrick Beumler, who supervises the Glendale, Arizona, Police Department’s Patrol and Emergency Response Units. …

Navajo Nation Police Department

AMBER Alert in Indian Country Technology Toolkits on the Move

When a child goes missing, law enforcement response time is critical. So is having the right tools. An endeavor to donate nearly every technological resource necessary for responding to missing and abducted children cases – a rugged laptop, digital camera, scanner, and more – is now underway thanks to the AMBER Alert in Indian Country (AIIC) initiative, a component of the AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP), funded by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Ashlynne Mike AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act of 2018.

AMBER Alert on the Front Lines: A Multi-State Success Story

It began as an ordinary situation that progressively got worse. The case of missing 3-year-old Noah Clare started on November 7, 2021, after his non-custodial father didn’t bring him back to his home in Gallatin, Tennessee.

The next day, Noah’s mother, Amanda Ennis, contacted the Gallatin police to get an emergency motion to suspend parenting time and a temporary restraining order against Noah’s father, Jacob Clare. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) issued an Endangered Child Alert for Noah Clare and a 16-year-old cousin accompanying him.

Growth Sector: Navajo Nation

Yes WEA Can
With the Navajo Nation’s COVID-19 emergency response in high gear, tech leader Christopher Becenti is closing ‘the digital divide’ to make life safer in his community

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2021 National Missing Children’s Day

Missing Children’s Day is celebrated in the U.S. and around the globe. Annual remembrance reminds everyone to join the fight to bring missing and abducted children home.

California Highway Patrol

California AMBER Alert 2.0

In October 2018, California AMBER Alert Co-Coordinator Ed Bertola recognized the California Highway Patrol (CHP) was in a bind. He had been working for months to improve the state’s AMBER Alert plan, but he did not have everything up as anticipated, and the changes the CHP had made had not been tested. However, when California saw three AMBER Alerts within 24 hours; a decision had to be made to go forward with what was in place.

Family Roundtable: Giving Survivors a Voice

Family roundtable meetings have occurred for more than 15 years with the specific purpose of providing a venue for communication and collaboration between victims, surviving family members and law enforcement.

pam foster

I Had to Become a Warrior Mom

Warrior Mom: Mother of murdered Navajo girl challenges tribal, federal, state and local leaders to be vigilant at 2019 AMBER Alert in Indian County Symposium

Unwelcome Alliance Featured Image

Unwelcome Alliance

Unwelcome Alliance: The tragic ties between abducted children and child sex trafficking are the focus of 2019 National AMBER Alert Symposium

Woman crying

Learning from an AMBER Alert

What can you learn from an abducted child’s family after an AMBER Alert? Northeast Ohio’s AMBER Alert program aims to find out.

Training the First Responders

How the Telecommunications Best Practices for Missing and Abducted Children course (TELMAC) promotes readiness from the first report of an endangered, missing, or abducted child.

Ashlynne’s Law AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act of 2018

With the passage of this important legislation, the AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program is hard at work moving the law into action. A law born out of the tragic abduction and murder of eleven-year-old Ashlynne Mike of the Navajo Nation endeavors to bring increased law enforcement coordination, new and expanded resources, and renewed […]

2018 National Missing Children’s Day

Awards presented in the US Department of Justice Great Hall Missing Children’s Day is recognized annually in Washington D.C., as well as states across the nation and countries around the globe. The U.S. Department of Justice held its 2018 awards ceremony on May 23, 2018, in the Great Hall, with event coordination by the Office […]

2018 National AMBER Alert Symposium

The 2018 National AMBER Alert Symposium, held in Orlando, Florida, May 15-17, 2018, was attended by more than 100 partners including AMBER Alert Coordinators, Missing Persons Clearinghouse Managers, Child Abduction Response Team (CART) Coordinators and other child protection officials. More than 40 states, federally recognized tribes, Puerto Rico, Canada and Mexico were represented at this […]

The Future of Child Protection

AMBER ALERT TRAINING & TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM ADMINISTRATOR SHARES VISION FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN Jim Walters has accomplished a lot since becoming AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP) Administrator in July 2014. Nearly 40 years in law enforcement and the military has helped prepare him for the critical task at hand, and he is […]

AMBER Alert Training Highlights – Fall 2017

Just a month before Hurricanes Maria and Irma brought massive devastation in Puerto Rico, law enforcement officers in the U.S. territory had fortunately received training on how to find missing and abducted children. The AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program’s event held August 23-24, 2017, had more than 450 participants representing all 13 regions […]

Justice for Ashlynne

NATIVE AMERICAN GIRL’S DEATH MAY SAVE COUNTLESS LIVES All eleven-year-old Ashlynne Mike and her nine-year-old brother Ian did was accept a ride home from their school’s bus stop in Lower Fruitlands, Arizona. When it was over, Ashlynne had been raped and murdered and her brother Ian was left wandering in the desert. On October 27, […]

2017 AMBER Alert symposium recap

2017 AMBER Alert Symposium

PATTY WETTERLING CHALLENGES AMBER ALERT PARTNERS TO NEVER GIVE UP HOPE Patty Wetterling fought back tears while describing how she learned her son’s body had been found after nearly three decades of searching and hoping he was still alive. On October 22, 1989, her eleven-year old son Jacob was riding his bike when he was […]

empty chair in an empty warehouse

Why an AMBER Alert May Never Be Issued

A yearlong study on sex trafficking in Las Vegas found the majority of victims were teenagers under the threat of violence from their perpetrators—and more than half of all underage victims were never reported missing. The results of the study have broad implications for the AMBER Alert program because law enforcement and others may never […]

Casey Jo Pipestem and America's Most Wanted article header

“She Was a Sweet Girl and Did Not Deserve to Die”

Casey Jo Pipestem was raised in Oklahoma City as a member of the Seminole Tribe. Casey’s grandmother raised her until she passed away when Casey was just 7 years old. She then lived with other relatives, but found it difficult to fit in while living in rural communities. Casey dropped out of high school, moved […]

Cindy McCain

2016 TRIBAL SYMPOSIUM

The Tribal Child Protection Leadership Forum and Symposium began with a traditional Native American blessing that included the words, “Oh child where are you?” The events took place in Scottsdale, Arizona, July 19-21, 2016, and included representatives from more than 25 tribes who shared lessons learned and experiences with AMBER Alert Coordinators, Missing Persons Clearinghouse […]