(Beaver Dam) As law enforcement continues to search for 16-year-old Sophia Franklin of Beaver Dam, many have asked when an Amber Alert is ready to be issued. Amber Alerts are generally issued when someone goes missing, is abducted, or is kidnapped That is typically the elderly or a child. In general, Beaver Dam Police Lieutenant Jeremiah Johnson says they have a lot of resources at their disposal.
“For example, if someone is a senior citizen and they have suffered from dementia or maybe wandered away from, they tend to wander, we can issue a silver alert with the state of Wisconsin,” says Johnson. “If we have veterans that are possible balancing mental health issues, PTSD, and they’re having issues. We can issue a veteran green alert.”
Johnson says there is also a missing and endangered child alert that can be sent out. When doing a missing person’s report, the lieutenant says the first step is to enter the person into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database.
“We have the name, date of birth,” Johnson says. “So, for instance they get pulled over in a car, [the] officer runs their driver’s license number, they have contact with them, whatever it might be, once they figure out who they are, they run it through the system, it’ll come up with a hit.”
Johnson says if the person is a match, the officer will then call the missing person’s agency to let them know what is going on and then that person will be reunited with the proper people.
The Amber Alert for Franklin was extended to the state of Missouri on Wednesday.
