AMBER Alert Problems in NJ

The report of a child abduction triggered New Jersey's very first AMBER alert Thursday.

The boy was found quickly and was back home Thursday night.

The 10-year-old boy told police he was snatched off a Trenton street. Another boy said a man in a car pulled the 10-year-old into a vehicle at Elm and Chestnut. The alleged victim reportedly told police he was driven around for a while and then released unharmed.

It was a happy ending for the family, but it showed a number of glitches in the AMBER alert system in New Jersey.

There were two problems Thursday. First, some people didn't get a specific AMBER alert but a more general and scarier civil alert. Second, some media companies were still running the alert more than an hour after it had been canceled.

Kat McGinn of National Park, N.J., is one of many people who were startled to see an emergency alert come across their televisions Thursday night at about 7 p.m.

"Yeah, we were setting up to watch the Flyers game and the emergency alert came on TV and told us there was an Emergency Civil Alert. The alert on McGinn's TV was sent out through her cable company. It said, "A civil authority has issued a civil emergency message."

McGinn said that the message never said anything about a missing childe.

"Nothing at all. There was no clue as to what the emergency was," McGinn said.

The AMBER Alert system is supposed to get the word out quickly that a child has been abducted.

Here is how it actually worked Thursday:
State police sent the alert at 5:38 p.m. and requested it run for six hours.
The National Weather Service relayed the alert to the media at 5:50 p.m.
The missing boy was found and state police canceled the alert at 6:10 pm.; the media got the notice at the same time.

State police said that a software glitch in the computerized alert system caused many television stations and cable companies to issue a civil emergency message instead of the AMBER Alert.

NBC 10 did not run the AMBER alert or the civil emergency alert. Our news department immediately determined the boy had been found. Cable companies such as Comcast ran the civil emergency alert on NBC 10's channel during Thursday night's 6 p.m. news.

Comast said that state police control the alert and that all questions should be directed to them.

Both New Jersey state police and the New Jersey Association of Broadcasters said it appears that some media companies need an upgrade to assure the problem does not happen again.

Article continues below

---

advertisement

---

Author: Copyright 2002 by NBC 10. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.