Happy ending to hour-old Amber Alert
Posted Sep 25, 2011 8:12 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
For the second time this month, there’s been a happy ending to an amber alert issued in the region. Calgary Police are crediting the actions of an outreach worker at the Mustard Seed, as well as the broadcast of the bulletin over the radio, for solving the case.
The alert was issued Saturday night when an 8-year-old girl went missing from her temporary home in Fort MacLeod. The Mounties believed the young girl and a woman were travelling to Calgary.
Calgary Police Duty Inspector Paul Stacey says that’s when the Mustard Seed outreach worker, just arriving at the downtown charity, helped solve the hour’s old case.
“As they pulled up to the front of the Mustard Seed, they had just heard — there was two of them in the car — the amber alert being announced on the radio from the Fort MacLeod RCMP,” Casey tells 660News. “As soon as they finished hearing that, they looked out on the sidewalk and there is the woman and the eight year old child that fit” (the description) “exactly to a T.'”
Stacey says with the arrival of police, at first the youngster was scared.
“She was a little scared at first when we came on scene,” notes Stacey. “But we happened to have a policewoman down there that had some experience with our child at risk response team. And she really put this young girl at ease, and before long she had her laughing and everything else.”
Stacey feels the case is an example of how well the amber alert system can work.
“Honestly this woman and the eight year old would have gone completely undetected had the amber alert not gone all over the radio,” he adds. “And there was the keen sense from the downtown outreach worker, and timing too, that they happened to hear this and see them right there. It was a total success story as far as the amber alert program goes.”
The RCMP escorted the child back to Fort MacLeod.
Yet to be answered is how the two managed to get to Calgary in the first place and whether any charges are pending.
Earlier this month, 3 year old Kienan Hebert was returned to his Sparwood, B.C., home after an amber alert had been issued in both B.C. and Alberta following his disappearance.
