Amber Alerts---Have they gone too far?

[trumad]

Amber alert wakes thousands of New Yorkers at 3:51 a.m. Wednesday morning, sparking debate about emergency system

Is it a needless interruption, or a valuable life-saving tool?
Thousands of New Yorkers were awoken early Wednesday morning when their cell phones began blaring because of an amber alert notifying them of a missing child.
Accompanied by the screeching tones employed by the emergency broadcast system, a message appeared on cell phones across the five boroughs that read, “3:51 am AMBER Alert Manhattan, NY Amber Alert UPDATE: LIC/GEX1377 (NY) (1995) Tan Lexis ES300.”
New York police said that a 7-month-old boy had been snatched by his biological mother, Marina Lopez, 25, from a Harlem social service facility on Tuesday afternoon. Lopez, who police said was bipolar, was deemed a threat to the child’s well-being, and and the cell phone Amber alert was issued in New York City for just the third time in the past year.

“When a child under the age of 18 has been abducted and is in imminent danger of death or serious harm, immediacy can help save lives,” a public information officer for the New York State Police, which issued the alert, told the Daily News in an email.
By Wednesday afternoon, the boy had been located and returned unharmed to the Harlem facility where he lives, police said, leaving some residents to question whether the automatic alert was necessary.
“While I am sensitive to the importance of Amber alerts, a 4 a.m. emergency alarm, causing momentary panic and ruining a night's sleep over a domestic matter involving a child and his biological mother seems way over the top,” Brooklyn resident Sam Erickson, 46, told the Daily News. “I know that the federal government added amber alerts to the list of things that would be blasted out on the system but either that is a bad idea or they need to be more selective about which ones and when.”


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/amber-alert-wakes-thousand-new-york-sparking-debate-article-1.1401466#ixzz2ZLYbQTz0

[Agschmid]

1. These can be turned off on iPhones...

If they could save the life of a child, I am not anti alerts... That being said I turned the noise feature for this off.

[NightWatcher]

2. How many sleeping citizens are going to see the missing kid?

I put my iphone on "do not disturb" when I turn in. If it were daylight and I was out driving I could possibly see who they are looking for.

Leave the alerts, but allow us to silence them at night. (Which you can)

[ret5hd]

3. How many kids have been saved by Amber Alerts?

Really, I want to know.

[okaawhatever]

7. Quite a few. I believe the first time it was used, or the first time it was used in a certain state,

a man had kidnapped a girl and someone got his license plate. They put the plate number and description out and a woman saw him on the freeway within a few minutes. There were several other stories, but I remember when we got them as part of the overhead freeway signs there were stats about effectiveness. Also, most of the outlets for info are the same ones we use for weather and other emergency situations so it's not like the infrastructure for amber alerts is separate.

[Travis_0004]

4. I have amber alerts turned off

My phone will not let me disable presidential alerts, and I choose to keep extreme alerts on.

One option you could do, is set text messages (and therefore amber alerts) low enough not to wake you. I get text an emails overnight all the time and they have never waken me up. The volume can still be loud enough for voice calls if you might need to be waken in an emergency.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

5. everything but Presidential Alerts can be turned off on most devices

and since the only time I would be prone to be looking at cars is when I am on the road, I do just that and rely on the radio and overhead signage to provide the alert... no need for it on my phone at 3:51AM...

sP

[olddots]

6. BE AFRAID BE VERY AFRAID !!!!!!

keep moving keep moving single file ........................