this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
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My phone has the ability to disable Amber alerts separately from most other emergency alerts, but this one went out as an "Extreme threat" alert, and it feels unwise to disable those.
Maybe the fact that a potentially dangerous person exists 7 hours away from me shouldn't be classified as an extreme threat?
Aside from blocking everything, is there something we can do to get these reclassified, or at least make them regional?
Apply political pressure. Though of course there are downsides of that too.
The first amber alert I got woke me up at 2am. Next morning the kid was discovered - with the parent who had legal custody the whole time. Because of that situation my state almost never issues amber alerts and when they do a lot more time is wasted verifying that it is a real problem (wasted because it is a real problem when time counts - I have no idea how often it isn't wasted because the investigation discovered it wasn't a real issue)
It would appear when filling out a request for a BLUE Alert (pdf) and submitting it to the DPS[1], there are no fields present allowing the submitter to specify how large of an area/region should be included. This leads me to believe the TX DPS in Austin is at fault for setting the area to way, way larger than reasonably required.
The above "7 hours away" is not an exaggeration, this alert was upper NW TX and anyone who lives in Southern TX is 7+ hrs away driving really fast with the wind at your back and no traffic.
[1] https://www.dps.texas.gov/section/intelligence-counterterrorism/request-alert-activation