Across the country, police are looking for Kienan Hebert, a three year old boy thought to have been abducted from his family’s home in Sparwood, B.C., about 600 km east of Vancouver.
To help in their search, police issued an Amber Alert, a comprehensive plan that provides a coordinated and rapid response to child abductions. Law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters, transportation agencies and the wireless industry work together to help find missing children.
The alert has been used many times before.
The alert is named for nine-year-old girl, Amber Hagerman, who was abducted and murdered in 1996. Her parents began a movement to establish more stringent laws to protect children. Dallas established the Amber Alert in 1997 and it grew from there.
The alert is now in effect across Canada.
Here are some milestones in its history in this country:
MILESTONES
2002
“We anticipate an [alert] will only be issued once a year in Alberta,” said the province’s solicitor-general Heather Forsyth. “We hope we never have to use it, but if a child is abducted Amber Alert is another tool police can use to find them and help them bring the child home safely.”
Victims’ advocates call for the creation of national program to ensure child abductors can’t escape capture by moving from one province to another.
2003
May
Quebec becomes the fourth province, behind Newfoundland and Labrador, Alberta and Ontario, to launch the Amber Alert program.
October
Authorities issue Amber Alert following the disappearance of Cecilia Zhang, 9, from her family home in Toronto. The girl later turned up dead and a man named Min Chen was sentenced to life in prison without parole for 15 years.
2006
July
Authorities issue a Canada-wide warrant for a pedophile believed to have abducted 10-year-old Zachary Miller in Whitewood, Sask. He is located nearby a few days later and Peter Robert Joseph Whitmore, 35, is charged with abduction.
A 10-month old girl is put in the care of social services in Calgary, soon after she was abducted by her biological mother, Theresa Lynn Michel, during a supervised visit.
Police credited the Amber Alert system for the quick recovery of the infant. “The system worked well in this particular investigation in that it certainly put some pressure on the alleged offender and more or less put her to the ground, realizing that there was no place to flee to, and basically kept her in the city,” said Barry Cochran, a police staff sergeant.
2007
Ontario police cancel an Amber Alert after recovering a newborn baby who went missing from a Sudbury hospital. A woman named Brenda Batisse is apprehended, and police describe the incident as a “non-familial abduction.”
2009
Ontario announces it will review its Amber Alert missing children system after the abduction and murder of eight-year-old Tori Stafford in Woodstock, Ont. No alert had been issued when the girl disappeared because police didn’t have details on a suspect vehicle.
2010
May
Canada’s cellphone companies team up to offer Amber Alerts through text messaging. The free service is to be available to those who sign up.
“During the work day lots of people don’t have the ability to watch TV or listen to the radio but now they can receive an Amber Alert 24 hours a day if they choose, anywhere they have a cellphone signal,” said Jim Johannsson of Telus.
July
Authorities locate young Samantha Martyn in Regina, Sask., a few days after she and her mother, Natasha Sentes, were abducted by her father, Christopher Martyn, from their North Dakota home and an Amber Alert was issued.
November
An Amber Alert is cancelled after the appearance of two young brothers who had wandered away from the driveway in front of their grandfather’s house in central Ontario. Tyson Fildey, 10 and Mason Fildey-Holyj, 5 had spent the night huddled together in the countryside three kilometres from their home.
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