In separate interviews yesterday, the two said the NMI should avail of the federal program that provides an early warning system to help find missing children.
Fitial said he thinks the government and the CNMI people should ask Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan to “start doing something about it.”
“We just have to follow the proper procedure to get included. I will initiate the request. Anything that is good for us I will initiate,” the governor said.
He noted that there are federal statutes that do not include CNMI like the one that does not allow the commonwealth from engaging in shipyard businesses.
Inos for his part said they need do see what the program provides.
The Amber Alert System began in 1996 in Dallas-Fort Worth when broadcasters teamed with local police to develop an early warning system to help find abducted children.
Amber stands for America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response. This acronym was created as a legacy to nine-year-old Amber Hagerman who was kidnapped while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas, and then brutally murdered.
Since then, other states and communities began setting up their own Amber Alert plans as the idea was adopted across the nation.
In November 2005, The U.S. Department of Justice launched an initiative to train Child Abduction Response Teams, or CART, nationwide. It is designed to assist local law enforcement agencies responding to incidents of missing and abducted children.
CART can be deployed as part of an Amber Alert, or when a child is abducted or missing but the abduction or disappearance does not meet the Amber Alert criteria.
However, the CNMI has yet to be part of this program that includes all 50 states, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The Amber Alert System has also been adopted in the Canadian provinces and continues to expand into the Mexican border.
To date, 495 children have been recovered with the help of Amber Alert system. The Justice Department continues to hold localized training for law enforcement nationwide to familiarize them with the system.
