Amber Alerts Gone Haywire?
Anyone else as annoyed as we were last night with the overkill Amber Alert? Amber Alerts, to refresh your memory, are those statewide alerts for abducted children. This one was about some one year old in Southern California, if memory serves me correct.
I first heard it listening to the radio. I only heard it once there. No biggie. Then I'm watching the Channel 3 News and it comes blaring on 3 or 4 times. It starts with a loud- I guess you'd call in a "claxon" type- sound. Blasts maybe 3 times and you can't hear the TV. It's followed by one of those recordings from the highway patrol akin to Weather Service severe weather alerts.
Once is fine, although one of those scrolling text messages without the noise would probably have sufficed. They did it at least three times while I was watching the news. Overkill, as far as I was concerned. I wonder who you call to complain about that sort of thing: Suddenlink, or the TV station?
posted by Fred Mangels @ 8:30 AM
12 comments
12 Comments:
Do you think the child's mother would think that you having to listen to 4 messages is over kill?
I don't care what she might think. Aside from the fact this was from 8 or 9 hundred miles away, they don't need to run those alerts back to back five minutes apart. A simple scrolling text message would suffice.
Those annoying repeated alerts were being broadcast on all channels so Suddenlink is the villain. I do not know what a broadcaster's legal obligation is re: Amber alerts. I assumed the reason we were getting them was that they had info that the perp was heading for Oregon.
If you note the time of the kidnapping 1:30 AM and the two locations that the suspect might be traveling to... 1 Mexico or 2 Washington. I would suspect that the border was already closed and by 3:00 PMish when we were getting these alerts continuously, my deductive reasoning thinks that the suspect might be traveling north to Washington. North is where we are in relation to this event. Highway 101 and Interstate 5 are to most logical traveling roads, but Interstate 5 probably has more Police presence that Highway 101 and there are definitely places off the beat and path.
My grandson had to endure these interruptions too. I kept telling this 4 year old in generic terms about this situation, so that it would not scare him, but that there was a child taken away from his mother. I know if it were me, as the mother, I would feel the panic and hope others would take it seriously. If you read about this suspect, time was obviously important. It didn't seem to me to be too much of an inconvenience given the fact a child's life was at stake. Scrolling would of been effective, I agree, but maybe not attention gripping enough!
It wasn't just TV, but cellphones, too, anyone with a California phone, I guess, since it was a statewide alert - 1 yr. old Jayden Nathaniel Santiago was abducted in San Pedro following a violent early morning altercation involving his parents.... the Dad came to the Mom's house and stabbed the Mom and her new boyfriend, then took the boy...
The boy "was found safe on Monday evening in Tijuana by U.S. Marshals. The boy’s father, Giovany Santiago-Enriquez, was also taken into custody by Marshals in Tijuana on suspicion of attempted murder and child abduction, according to the Los Angeles Police Department."
Hmmm...I'll have to check my cell phone to see if I got one. I usually have my cell phone turned off and check it once a day for messages.
How about NOT blowing up everyone's cell phones with this? I and all my coworkers received some very noisy text messages about something we have no ability to do anything about. We're all at work. What does the EMS people expect us to do? Call our friends and warn them. That might be optimal in the minds of the ones sending the text but several other people I know that also received it were startled (while driving) and others found it an invasion of privacy into their personal phones. If this occurs everytime there's one of these (or any other emergency I DID NOT opt into receiving texts for) I'll just keep my phone turned off, thus defeating the purpose of having a phone.
I feel so bad that you were all inconvenienced so bad. I know a child was in danger, but to interrupt your precious TV show or use a few seconds of your valuable cell time. Then again maybe since you were so upset when that car buzzed past you on the freeway you may have called CHP just for spite.
Holy first world problem! If my child is kidnapped I hope they shut the TV programming off and put a picture on the tv until she is found. I can't believe your TV wstching is more important than that child well being. Sad
I just checked my phone and there wasn't any text messages. Maybe it's something that isn't stored on the cell phone tower to be retrieved later? Except I believe I got one before some time ago and that was stored.
It's not stored in text messages, I can't find it either. But it blared, louder than any TV alert I have ever heard, and flashed on the screen.
Here's something else:
US National Weather Service Eureka California on FACEBOOK:
Yesterday, Monday, March 9th around 340 PM, an Amber Alert was sent out of our office. We were made aware of the fact that the message was displayed on some TV channels much longer than it was intended to be (until around 645 PM). If you saw a crawler across the top of the screen of your TV during the evening (for those living in Del Norte, Humboldt, and Mendocino counties), we would appreciate feedback by answering these questions:
1. Which TV provider do you have?
2. What channel did you see it on?
3. Approximately what time did you see the message until?
Thanks again!
Amber Alerts by cell phone have to be signed up for. It's something you CHOOSE to receive when you set up your phone.
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