Amber Hagerman, 1996
On January 13, 1996, nine-year-old Amber Hagerman was riding her bicycle with her younger brother in Arlington, Texas. According to a witness, a pickup pulled up, an individual jumped out, and grabbed the girl. The witness phoned the police immediately, and they arrived quickly. The witness, unfortunately, could only identify the kidnapper as male, and possibly white or Hispanic, and the truck as dark colored, maybe black.
While rare, stranger abductions can be extraordinarily difficult for police to solve. Local police and the FBI worked to find the missing girl, along with members of the community. Four days after the kidnapping, her body was found. She had been alive for two days following the kidnapping, but the authorities had not been able to find her to rescue her. For the next three years, a team of investigators continued to work on the case; however, it remains unsolved to this day.
In the days following the kidnapping, a caller to a Dallas radio station asked why police could not quickly notify the media, and therefore the public, about cases like this. From this question, the Amber Alert was born.
The Amber in Amber Alert stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response, but is also named after Amber Hagerman. The Amber Alert system sends out an alert to television, radio, and cellular service providers when a child has been reported missing or abducted. Since 1996, 800 children have been rescued from a variety of situations as the direct result of Amber Alerts. Amber Alerts provide authorities with the ability to connect with potential witnesses, and the ability to provide information telling people what to report and who to call with information.