If someone goes missing, neighbors' phones ring

If a child or vulnerable adult goes missing in Savage, phones throughout that neighborhood will start ringing to alert residents and ask them to check their property. If all goes well, the person will be found and brought home safely.

The city this month became the first in the seven-county metro area and the 21st agency in Minnesota to use A Child Is Missing, a nonprofit service based in Florida. The automated calling service has helped safely recover 315 missing children, college students and disabled or elderly (often with Alzheimer's disease) people since opening in 1997, said executive director Sherry Friedlander.

"All we need to do is make one phone call," said Savage Police Capt. David Muelken.

While police search and knock on doors, the Florida service can be making up to 1,000 calls a minute to local residents and businesses. Residents hear a recorded message describing the missing person and asking the recipient to look around their property and call local police if they find the missing person.

"It frees up a lot of manpower," Muelken said.

Nationally, about 2,200 agencies, including police in Miami, Atlanta, Sacramento and Seattle, are using A Child Is Missing, which issued more than 2,000 alerts last year, Friedlander said. For many states, the service fills a public notification gap for cases that don't qualify for the national Amber Alert system, officials said.

The service has been used twice in its first year in Minnesota to help find missing children in Hibbing, officials said.

"I think the system is a good one, it works fairly well," said Hibbing police investigator Gail Klarich. "You are able to use the eyes and ears of everybody in the surrounding area."

Hibbing's first case occurred shortly after the service started in April when a 9-year-old girl wandered into the woods from her foster home one afternoon, Klarich said. The alert calls went out and numerous volunteers helped look for her. She sneaked back home and was found hiding in the garage about two hours later, Klarich said. The other case involved a father who returned his child to the mother three hours later than expected.

Some Hibbing residents wondered if the calling service was legitimate, Klarich said, and some were miffed that they did not get a follow-up call when the kids were found. "That's the problem; people don't get called back," she said. "We try to announce it through the local media and get word out to people that a child has been found." She said police also have set up a tape-recorded message that callers can hear to verify that A Child Is Missing is on the level.

Friedlander said the organization, which operates 24 hours a day, can't afford to make the follow-up calls because it is funded solely by grants and donations. She said an alert involves an average of 1,500 calls, but that the number could reach 10,000 in a densely populated area. She said the service, which has 14 full-time and 20 part-time employees, operates in all 50 states and has issued about 10,000 alerts in the past seven years.

Beyond Amber Alert

In Minnesota, Amber Alerts are aired for non-family abductions of children under age 18. The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) issues such alerts only if local police have information the public could use to find the kidnapped child, whom police believe is in "imminent danger." The information is broadcast by the media and electronic billboards as well as being faxed or e-mailed to all state police agencies and others.

Minnesota is one of a few states to have a second-tier, crime alert network that can issue alerts for non-Amber missing people, said Janell Rasmussen, head of the BCA network. She said Minnesota is the only state where local police can send out statewide alerts, not only about missing persons, but about any serious crime to all police and almost 10,000 businesses, hospitals, schools and residents registered with the crime alert system. Alerts can be faxed or e-mailed to any or all of 53 categories of businesses or other groups.

The BCA is exploring whether to include A Child Is Missing alerts in its crime alert network or to leave it to local agencies to sign up for the service, said BCA Superintendent Tim O'Malley. He noted that whatever agency initiates a Minnesota crime alert also sends a follow-up message when the alert issue is resolved.

A Child Is Missing offers more targeted calling -- which a small town may need -- than do state crime alerts, he said, adding:

"I think it is a great concept."

Jim Adams • 612-673-7658