by Sandy Yang, Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Officials credited a recently adopted child abduction alert system with the safe rescue of two Lancaster girls.
Thursday marked the first use of the Amber alert system since it was implemented statewide just six days ago by Gov. Gray Davis.
It previously had been used in California only at local levels, including during the kidnapping of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion in Orange County last month.
The alert was issued within four hours after Roy Dean Ratliff kidnapped Tamara Brooks, 16, and Jacqueline Marris, 17, at gunpoint early Thursday.
The alert included the names of the girls and the license plate number of the stolen Ford Bronco that Ratliff used to abduct them.
The information was sent to all California law enforcement agencies and media outlets throughout the state. Caltrans flashed news of the abduction and a description of the Bronco on 316 electronic signs on freeways around the state.
“It worked like it should have - like a dream,” said Richard Westin, a deputy for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Sheriff’s deputies in Kern County said they got several calls from people who saw the Bronco. Among them was a state highway worker who spotted the vehicle after hearing the alert broadcast by a Los Angeles radio station, said California Highway Patrol spokesman Tom Marshall.
“By using this new system, we immediately pass on the information to the citizens,” said Sonia Parra, a sheriff’s deputy from Los Angeles County. “That contributed tremendously today to the response and positive results.”
Ratliff was shot and killed after the short chase ended in a crash. The girls were unharmed.
The alert is named after Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl who was kidnapped and murdered in Arlington, Texas, in 1996. In 2001, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children launched a nationwide “Amber” - America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response - plan.
“The California experience is a classic case of how the program works and it is repeated in many other places as well,” said Steve Mace, a spokesman for the Dallas-Fort Worth Amber program. “It was a textbook example of how it should work.”
There are currently 41 programs across the country, credited with recovering at least 17 children.
Law enforcement issues the alerts only in cases where they believe an abducted child is in immediate danger. Officials require enough details about the child, abductor and vehicle to merit an alert, Parra said.
In recent weeks, the state called for the cooperation of law enforcement agencies and broadcasters in working with the California Child Safety Amber Network. Gov. Davis is also expected to sign a law that complements the Amber system called the Child Abduction Regional Emergency system.