MILWAUKEE — All day Tuesday, we’ve been telling you about a Milwaukee girl who has been missing for ten days.
We heard from our viewers, wondering why police did not push out an Amber Alert.
It turns out, this case was all over a custody dispute. A spokesperson for Milwaukee police says you usually do not hear about those, because the child is not in imminent danger.
We looked into the big differences in cases which can trigger Amber Alerts.
567. That's how many children under 17 years old are currently missing right now in Wisconsin.
According to the Department of Justice, the latest is a 10-year-old, last seen two Saturdays ago, near North 36th and Lisbon.
Neighbors, like Gloria Garrett, are worried.
"I'm wondering what's going on with the kids coming up missing; what are we going to do about it? They should have put it out day one she went missing," Garrett said.
But we learned Tuesday why that did not happen when the child was first reported missing February 3rd.
Milwaukee police tell us this case is the result of a custody dispute. And those are cases the public normally never hears about, because the child is not in danger. A spokesperson says an alert was sent out by mistake.
But we wanted to know—when does a case rise to the level of an Amber Alert?
Amber Alerts have strict thresholds. In the abduction of a child under 17, there must be imminent danger of serious injury or death. And there must be enough information for a detailed description of the suspect and vehicle.
While there is no time limit for police to push out a "Critically Missing Child Alert," the guidelines vary between police departments.
In Milwaukee, the child must be under 11 years old, and should be suspected to be the victim of foul play.
So while this latest case was pushed out by police on accident, it did reveal one thing: our community deeply cares about one another.
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