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Proposed Kimmie's Law would broaden scope of Amber Alerts
by twinkletoes Wed Feb 01, 2012 6:12 am
Proposed Kimmie's Law would broaden scope of Amber Alerts
KATHLEEN MERRYMAN; Staff writer
Published: 01/31/12 7:21 pm
Amber Alerts play to Americans’ finest aspirations: Keep your eyes open, your Twitter feed on, and you could save a child’s life.
After Amber Hagerman, 9, was murdered in Texas in 1996, state and federal governments developed a system of media alerts and digital highway signs to get the public looking for kids 17 and younger and the abductors who mean to hurt or kill them.
Washington legislators are now considering whether to expand that pool to include disabled people who are missing and in danger.
State Sen. Debbie Regala, D-Tacoma, and State Reps. Hans Zeiger and Bruce Dammeier, both Republicans from Puyallup, have proposed Kimmie’s Law. It would broaden the Amber Alert system to include anyone who “because of age, health, mental or physical disability is thought to be in danger because they have been abducted, or because they are lost in hazardous environmental or weather conditions.”
Their proposal is named for Kimmie Daily, 16, who had a developmental disability and lived on South Hill when she was lured to her death in 2010. She fit the Amber age range, and her father, Cecil Daily, said she was always prompt.
But deputies declined to issue an Amber Alert.
With no indication of a crime, a teen who is a couple of hours late getting home is not necessarily in danger.
Even if the alert had been issued, it would not have brought Kimmie home. She was strangled, her body left in an overgrown vacant lot, allegedly at the hands of an 18-year-old neighbor who awaits trial on a charge of aggravated first-degree murder.
“It wouldn’t have helped my daughter,” Daily testified at a committee hearing for House Bill 2477. “As we have learned, she was murdered before she was reported missing.”
But it might save another, said Diana Stadden of the ARC of Washington, which advocates for disabled people.
She cited the case of Jennifer Pimentel, 27, who also had a developmental disability. Pimentel was strangled in Port Townsend in October.
“She was seen in the days after her disappearance,” Stadden said. “If they had gotten it out within six hours, somebody might have seen her and reported it.”
The legislation also would make six hours the benchmark for posting an alert and would urge law enforcement officers to use social media, such as Twitter and Facebook.
Those, Sen. Regala said, might be useful in cases that might not be appropriate for the standard Amber Alert. Already, she said, broadcasters have contacted her with concerns about the bill.
A similar tool has been on the books since 2009: an endangered missing persons law sponsored by Sen. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor. To Stadden’s knowledge, nobody’s ever used it.
She and the bill’s sponsors are right when they say disabled people can be as vulnerable as children and deserve the same level of protection. But making a new law while not enforcing an existing one is problematic. So is throwing the full force of an Amber Alert at every case.
“An Amber Alert doesn’t work unless there’s something to tell,” Pierce County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Ed Troyer said. “An Amber Alert is designed to light up freeway signs with license plate numbers. If you’re abducted in a car, then it’s an Amber Alert.”
When there’s evidence that someone has been taken against his or her will, he said, he doesn’t wait six hours. He gets the alert going right away, along with tweets, Facebook posts and alerts shared with mainstream news websites.
When someone’s wandered off with the wrong friends or into a snowstorm, deputies might use different methods.
“We already work these cases really hard,” Troyer said. “There are a lot of other tools and things we do really well to find these people.”
The county’s new Project Locate uses cellphone technology to find lost disabled people who are wearing a $250 device in 30 minutes or less. The county has other ways to enlist the public’s help and exceed the requirements of the proposed law, Troyer said.
“Our media plan beats this by 5½ hours. If there’s an Alzheimer’s patient missing, I already have the picture out.”
Kimmie’s Law has the potential to standardize such good practices across the state But it needs work, and it’s worth that work.
It’s not quite home yet.
Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/01/31/2007050/proposed-kimmies-law-would-broaden.html
Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/01/31/2007050/proposed-kimmies-law-would-broaden.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/01/31/2007050/proposed-kimmies-law-would-broaden.html#storylink=cpy
KATHLEEN MERRYMAN; Staff writer
Published: 01/31/12 7:21 pm
Amber Alerts play to Americans’ finest aspirations: Keep your eyes open, your Twitter feed on, and you could save a child’s life.
After Amber Hagerman, 9, was murdered in Texas in 1996, state and federal governments developed a system of media alerts and digital highway signs to get the public looking for kids 17 and younger and the abductors who mean to hurt or kill them.
Washington legislators are now considering whether to expand that pool to include disabled people who are missing and in danger.
State Sen. Debbie Regala, D-Tacoma, and State Reps. Hans Zeiger and Bruce Dammeier, both Republicans from Puyallup, have proposed Kimmie’s Law. It would broaden the Amber Alert system to include anyone who “because of age, health, mental or physical disability is thought to be in danger because they have been abducted, or because they are lost in hazardous environmental or weather conditions.”
Their proposal is named for Kimmie Daily, 16, who had a developmental disability and lived on South Hill when she was lured to her death in 2010. She fit the Amber age range, and her father, Cecil Daily, said she was always prompt.
But deputies declined to issue an Amber Alert.
With no indication of a crime, a teen who is a couple of hours late getting home is not necessarily in danger.
Even if the alert had been issued, it would not have brought Kimmie home. She was strangled, her body left in an overgrown vacant lot, allegedly at the hands of an 18-year-old neighbor who awaits trial on a charge of aggravated first-degree murder.
“It wouldn’t have helped my daughter,” Daily testified at a committee hearing for House Bill 2477. “As we have learned, she was murdered before she was reported missing.”
But it might save another, said Diana Stadden of the ARC of Washington, which advocates for disabled people.
She cited the case of Jennifer Pimentel, 27, who also had a developmental disability. Pimentel was strangled in Port Townsend in October.
“She was seen in the days after her disappearance,” Stadden said. “If they had gotten it out within six hours, somebody might have seen her and reported it.”
The legislation also would make six hours the benchmark for posting an alert and would urge law enforcement officers to use social media, such as Twitter and Facebook.
Those, Sen. Regala said, might be useful in cases that might not be appropriate for the standard Amber Alert. Already, she said, broadcasters have contacted her with concerns about the bill.
A similar tool has been on the books since 2009: an endangered missing persons law sponsored by Sen. Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor. To Stadden’s knowledge, nobody’s ever used it.
She and the bill’s sponsors are right when they say disabled people can be as vulnerable as children and deserve the same level of protection. But making a new law while not enforcing an existing one is problematic. So is throwing the full force of an Amber Alert at every case.
“An Amber Alert doesn’t work unless there’s something to tell,” Pierce County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Ed Troyer said. “An Amber Alert is designed to light up freeway signs with license plate numbers. If you’re abducted in a car, then it’s an Amber Alert.”
When there’s evidence that someone has been taken against his or her will, he said, he doesn’t wait six hours. He gets the alert going right away, along with tweets, Facebook posts and alerts shared with mainstream news websites.
When someone’s wandered off with the wrong friends or into a snowstorm, deputies might use different methods.
“We already work these cases really hard,” Troyer said. “There are a lot of other tools and things we do really well to find these people.”
The county’s new Project Locate uses cellphone technology to find lost disabled people who are wearing a $250 device in 30 minutes or less. The county has other ways to enlist the public’s help and exceed the requirements of the proposed law, Troyer said.
“Our media plan beats this by 5½ hours. If there’s an Alzheimer’s patient missing, I already have the picture out.”
Kimmie’s Law has the potential to standardize such good practices across the state But it needs work, and it’s worth that work.
It’s not quite home yet.
Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/01/31/2007050/proposed-kimmies-law-would-broaden.html
Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/01/31/2007050/proposed-kimmies-law-would-broaden.html#storylink=cpy
Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/01/31/2007050/proposed-kimmies-law-would-broaden.html#storylink=cpy
twinkletoes- Supreme Commander of the Universe With Cape AND Tights AND Fancy Headgear
- Job/hobbies : Trying to keep my sanity. Trying to accept that which I cannot change. It's hard.
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