Today marks 30 years since 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted in Arlington, Texas – a tragedy that helped usher in the modern AMBER Alert system used nationwide to help find missing children.<\/p>\n
On January 13, 1996, Amber was riding her bicycle with her younger brother near their grandparents\u2019 home in Arlington, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, when a stranger reportedly grabbed her and forced her into a vehicle. A witness called police, but despite a massive search, Amber was not found alive. Four days later, on January 17, hikers discovered her body in a creek a few miles from the abduction site. Her murder remains unsolved.<\/p>\n
The shock of Amber\u2019s death reverberated far beyond North Texas. In the months that followed, local broadcasters, law enforcement and community advocates worked to develop a rapid notification system that could mobilize the public in serious child-abduction cases. That effort evolved into the AMBER Alert<\/a>, named both in memory of Amber and as an acronym for America\u2019s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response.<\/p>\n The first AMBER Alerts were issued in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 1996, and similar plans soon spread across the United States and later the world. Today, AMBER Alerts are broadcast through radio, television, highway signs and wireless emergency alerts \u2014 tools designed to reach the public quickly during the most critical initial hours of an abduction.<\/p>\n Law enforcement in Arlington and beyond continues to investigate leads in Amber\u2019s case more than three decades later. Her family and community leaders mark this anniversary with remembrance and renewed calls for vigilance and support for missing children and their families.<\/p>\n LISTEN<\/a>\u00a0on the Audacy App \n Featured Image Photo Credit: Curt Lewis – KRLD News\n <\/p>\n
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