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| TRAK-ING Missing Kids |
February 26, 2001 |
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Wilson and others announce private funding for police equipment
Albuquerque, NM -- Congresswoman Heather Wilson today joined law enforcement officials, community groups, and business people to announce private funding for a system that will help New Mexico law enforcement look for missing children.
Wilson and others, including United Way of Central New Mexico Board President Don Carson, announced funding for the TRAK system--a series of computers designed to help law enforcement instantly distribute information about missing children.
“We know for a fact that an abductor and a young child can escape, at a very minimum, at the rate of a mile a minute,” said Wilson. “When a child is missing, every single second counts and it’s crucial to form an impenetrable perimeter around the child and the perpetrator. So, we have to learn to use every available resource we have to create a huge neighborhood watch program. The TRAK system, along with the Amber Alert and the able work of police and sheriffs detectives and beat cops, will allow us to do that.”
The federal lawmaker has been involved in missing children issues since last October, when she sponsored and helped pass a federal measure encouraging states to implement the Amber Alert, a program named after murdered Texas child Amber Hagerman. The program currently has been agreed to by Albuquerque-area law enforcement and broadcasters and is in the planning and implementation stages.
The Amber Alert will allow law enforcement to take advantage of the existing broadcast network known as the “Emergency Alert System” in cases where a child is abducted by a stranger and believed to be in immediate danger, and the police have some description that people can be on the lookout for.
The TRAK system will equip law enforcement officials in New Mexico with technology to quickly create and electronically distribute color flyers with crucial information and photographs when a child is missing.
“There’s no doubt that law enforcement officials, broadcasters, the United Way, and Hewlett Packard deserve a lot of credit for their foresight in implementing a project such as this,” said Congresswoman Wilson about today’s announcement that New Mexico law enforcement will receive TRAK equipment to aid efforts to locate missing children.
“I hope we never have to use the TRAK system or the Amber Alert. I hope that this equipment, the standard operating procedures, and the manuals sit on a shelf and collect dust because we never have to use them,” explained Wilson. “But, if a child in New Mexico is ever taken, potential kidnappers need to know that our community will immediately come together, and that we’ll have thousands upon thousands of eyes and ears looking for them.”
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