Most Wanted Newspaper

This news story is claiming success with the Amber Alert System. They did capture a mother who took her two children away from foster care by using the Amber Alert. But it reveals a much deeper issue about the Amber Alert.

Amber Alert led to arrest of fugitive mother
© 2007 The Associated Press

KETCHIKAN, Alaska — A woman accused of fleeing from Texas with her two sons was apprehended in a small southeast Alaska village after crew members on a regional ferry recognized them from photos issued by the Amber Alert system.

Alaska State Troopers in Klawock on Christmas Eve arrested Lelah Jeanne Sullivan, 48, based on a Texas fugitive arrest warrant. She is being held on $100,000 bail.

U.S. marshals were in Ketchikan in mid-December trying to find Sullivan. She was accused of fleeing Texas with her sons age 13 and 16, who had been placed in a Texas foster home.

Sullivan was charged with two counts of interference with child custody, a felony, and obstruction of a court order.

The woman broke the law. I don’t disagreee with that at all. The police should have arrested her. No problem there either.

However, the Amber Alert should not have been used in this case. It was created with specific criteria for it’s use and law enforcement continues to misuse it since it fell under the control of the NCMEC.

According to Wikipedia, “To avoid both false alarms and having alerts ignored as a “wolf cry”, the criteria for issuing an alert are rather strict.”

Each state’s or province’s AMBER alert plan sets its own criteria for activation, meaning that there are differences between alerting agencies as to which incidents are considered to justify the use of the system. However, the U.S. Department of Justice issues the following “guidance”, which most states are said to “adhere closely to”[5]:

law enforcement must confirm that an abduction has taken place

the child must be at risk of serious injury or death

there must be sufficient descriptive information of child, captor, or captor’s vehicle to issue an alert

the child must be 17 years old or younger

Many law enforcement agencies have not used #2 as a criteris, resulting in many parental abductions triggering an Amber Alert where the child is not known or assumed to be at risk of serious injury or death.

In this case, #2 was ignored once again. Many law enforcement agencies misuse the Amber Alert. The result is that the public has become desensitized to it. There are only about 100 stranger abductions in the US each year. If the Amber Alert was reserved for those cases as it was intended to be, people would pay more attention to it and we would have better results in cases where the child is actually at risk of serious injury or death.

I think this is a really good idea. The FBI will be putting mugshots of wanted fugitives, missing children, and more on billboards. people still read billboards because they are bored while driving or riding in a car. I think the FBI will get results from these billboards and wanted fugitives will be recognized more often.

I hope it has success with missing children as well. One out of Seven missing children that are found are found because someone saw their picture.

FBI to put criminals, security issues up in digital billboard lights

The FBI today said it wants to install 150 digital billboards in 20 major U.S. cities in the next few weeks to show fugitive mug shots, missing people and high-priority security messages from the big bureau.

The billboards will let the FBI highlight those people it is looking for the most: violent criminals, kidnap victims, missing kids, bank robbers, even terrorists, the FBI said in a release. And the billboards will be able to be updated largely in real-time —right after a crime is committed, a child is taken, or an attack is launched.

The ability to get that information out quickly is the best feature of this program. The first minutes and hours of a child being kidnapped are crucial as is the first span of time after a crime like bank robbery.

The homeland security aspect of this is also good. The FBI can act swiftly if they get a tip about a terrorist attack.

The FBI said it tested its first billboard in the Philadelphia area in September, with crystal-clear images of 11 of its most violent fugitives on eight billboards and a 24-hour hotline for the public to call. The billboards paid quick public safety dividends. In October, two fugitives were captured as a direct result of the publicity, the FBI said.

We at Most Wanted Newspaper know this is no exaggeration. This blog started long after our actual newspaper was published with pictures of local wanted fugitives in Modesto, Califoirnia.

In our very first publication, our first fugitive capture came two hours after the newspaper was distributed. There was some luck involved, but many times that is exactly what triggers a capture. A little luck never hurts.

Our distributor dropped papers off at a local restaurant where they were given to customers to read while waiting on their orders. One customer spotted our cover fugitive waiting at a bus stop right outside the restaurant.

So kudos to the FBI for using these realtime billboards. May they have all the success and luck they need to capture wanted fugitives and find kidnapped children.

I just hope that they do not turn the control of it over to America’s Most wanted Television Entertainment Show or the NCMEC.

America’s Most wanted is trademarked as an entertainment television show and that is exactly what it is.

When the Amber Alert first started, it was used for cases where a child was abducted by a stranger or where the child was in real danger. As soon as the NCMEC got control of it, they started using it for parental abductions where the child was not in danger.

When it was used only in serious cases where the child was in danger, people paid attention to it. There are about 100 stranger abductions in a year.

Now that you see daily Amber Alerts in cases where the child is not in danger, it has become mundane and people are desensitized to it and pay no attention.

If the NCMEC or America’s Most Wanted was to get control of this billboard system, the same thing would occur because they are interested in how much attention they can get and their PR experts have a million dollar a year budget and use commercial marketing techniques to make sure the organizations get a lot of attention.

In cases where a child is missing, the news media can be a great help, if they report real news and urge the public to help. But some reporters and news organizations go out of their way to sensationalize the stories. Not to help police and families find the child, but to increase their own sales and get higher ratings.


Nancy Grace does it all the time, but she isn’t the only one who tries to sensationalize the news to get ratings and doesn’t mind using other people’s tragedies to do so.

Missing Child’s Body Believed To Be Found
from www.wspa.com

Family members mourn the death of a 4-year-old. Meanwhile, the spotlight shifts to the child’s father and his extensive criminal record. Police believe the body of a boy found Wednesday is that of 4-year-old Javeion Mayes, but they’re not releasing the cause of death. But his father Christopher Wilson is a suspect in the case.

Ok, good reporting so far here. They are giving us the facts . . . let’s read on;

As we told you, Wilson has an extensive criminal history and a warrant out for his arrest. 7 On Your Side wants to know why he wasn’t behind bars.

So, the first part of that in bold, “As we told you”, they want us to believe that 7 on your side telling us this is the only way we would ever have found out that the father had a criminal record. We would not have learned that from another news organization, only 7 on your side.


The second bold statement in that, “7 on your side wants to know” is supposed to sound like they are outraged and hoping that you are too. It is supposed to look like they are after the police on this and will get to the bottom of it for all of us and we should be grateful they exist.


The reporter isn’t outraged at all of the other warrants that are outstanding I guess. Just this one because it is in the news headlines right now.


Every city, county, state, and even the federal government has thousands of warrants out for people who have not yet been picked up. There are more warrants issued every single day than there are people to serve them.


Yet this reporter, this news organization, 7 on your side, wants you to believe that this guy was somehow not being picked up on HIS warrant because the police have something to hide and that 7 on your side is “on your side” and they will get to the bottom of it for us.

Missing Children Blog
News and Media Blog
Runaway Teens