According to DPS, a blue alert must meet the following criteria: Long before the alert was sent — and while social media users speculated whether the alert they received was related to this incident or perhaps another that wasn`t specified in the post — Clay County officials had noted on social media that it was one who had been injured during the check. of traffic, went well. and that he was expected to make a full recovery from the shooting. Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Ericka Miller defends the warning, which is being issued on Texas` 268,597 square miles. Rep. Brooks Landgraf, a West Texas Republican, whose bill to create a statewide alert system for active shooters passed Sept. 1. He tweeted Tuesday night that he was working with the DPS to limit the geographic scope of these warnings. The state issued the alert looking for a man accused of shooting and shooting a deputy at the Clay County Sheriff`s Office southeast of Wichita Falls Monday night.
Only law enforcement agencies can ask the Department of Public Safety to issue a blue alert. Objectively, according to the letter of the law, there are reasonable doubts as to whether national law enforcement acted appropriately in issuing Monday`s Blue Alert. “We want to remind the public that blue alerts are urgent public safety alerts designed to warn people of potential dangers,” she says. “They are designed to expedite the apprehension of violent criminals who kill or seriously injure law enforcement officers by generating advice and clues for law enforcement agencies, giving those authorities the best chance of arresting a dangerous criminal. The ministry triggers alarms at the request of an investigative body and treats any alarm activation as an emergency. It is important to remember that in response to a qualifying event, the investigating authority may initially not have sufficient identifying or descriptive information about the suspect to include in the alert, and it often conducts an initial investigation to determine whether a warning would be useful in the case. Blue Alerts has been active in the state of Texas since Governor Rick Perry signed an executive order in 2008 to expedite the arrest of criminals who seriously injure or kill law enforcement officers. The National Blue Alert Network supports the use and integration of Blue Alert plans across the United States to quickly disseminate information to law enforcement, the media, and the public to help apprehend violent criminals who have killed or seriously injured an officer in the line of duty.
Blue alerts can also be issued if a suspect poses an immediate and credible threat to law enforcement or if an officer is reported missing in the line of duty. Miller doesn`t care that his last point is somewhat at odds with the language of Perry`s executive order, and further notes that there are a number of steps to issue a blue alert – create a flyer detailing the incident, share that pamphlet on his website and social media accounts, create TxDOT signage messages, and finally send that information to the Texas. which is responsible for disseminating the warning itself to mobile phones throughout the state. These things take time, she says. A bit of history about Blue Alerts: When Governor Rick Perry signed Executive Order RP-68 on August 18, 2008, he made Texas the second state to open its citizens to receive these alerts. 13 years later, 36 states across the Union are using these Blue Alert messages to alert the public to dangers and seek help apprehending violent criminals who have killed or seriously injured local, state, or federal law enforcement officials. Based on Miller`s assessment, DPS followed proper protocol Monday night. She shows a flyer about the incident posted on the DPS`s specific alert Twitter account with as much information about the suspects and vehicles as the ministry had as evidence at the time. It specifically says that the tweet was sent “at the time the alarm was activated.” On Android and iOS devices, the message comes in the form of an emergency alert containing information about the suspect, facilitating advice and leading to law enforcement. 18. In August 2008, Governor Rick Perry signed Executive Order RP-68, which created the state`s Blue Alert program.
Blue Alerts are designed to expedite the apprehension of violent criminals who kill or seriously injure local, state, or federal law enforcement officials. During a blue alert, the public receives information about the alleged attacker, facilitates whistleblowing and leads to law enforcement agencies. “We had no idea who he was, and 38 hours later he was handcuffed,” Lyde said. “It`s just a testament to the great work of Texas law enforcement when we come together to solve something.” Nor does it appear to be the case in the incident that set off Monday`s nightly alarm. Within days of the alarm, the car stopped by Clay County Representative was found and the shooter himself — a man identified as Joshua Lee Green of Arlington — was taken into custody. Clay County Sheriff Jeffrey Lyde said Arlington`s SWAT team found Green at an Arlington hotel around 10 a.m. Wednesday. After his arrest, Green was brought back to Clay County, where he is now accused of assaulting a police officer.
The message did not contain many details and only said that the warning was “in this area” and urged people to monitor radio and television. There were news reports all over the state. There are currently 37 states with blue alert plans. The COPS provides resources and technical assistance to states, territories, law enforcement agencies and tribes seeking to create or enhance blue alert plans. This includes voluntary activation policies, examples of legislation, policies and forms collected across the country in a central blue alert data store. When asked if the DPS has the ability to choose where to send national alerts, DPS spokeswoman Ericka Miller said it`s important for the public to remember that blue alerts are “urgent public safety alerts designed to warn people of potential dangers.” “Omg. Oh, really? ” wrote another Twitter user @republicinexile. “A blue alert sent a text message to the entire state without any information about what happened 4 hours earlier in a fairly isolated part of the state. I mean, come on. TEXAS (KLTV) — Law enforcement activated a national notification system after a suspect shot and killed a deputy sheriff in the Wichita Falls area Monday night. But should the Texans have been forced into a position where they were so actively seeking this information? Probably not.
Looking back at this ping now, it doesn`t appear that Monday night`s warning met the criteria for sending a national blue alert. Even worse, it almost certainly didn`t contain all the information it was supposed to share. During a blue alert, the public receives information about the alleged attacker so that clues and clues about that person can be directed to law enforcement. Monday`s warning, which came on cell phones for a full four hours after a shot was fired by a Clay County official during a 7 p.m. traffic stop, doesn`t quite fit that bill. And most of us were impressed by the fact that the alarm itself wasn`t very specific at all, which was probably a big reason why the term “blue alert” was one of the hottest topics on Twitter during the night hours following that ping on our phones. But while a timestamp of the screenshot flyer shared on social media implies that the flyer itself was posted on the DPS website at 10:51 p.m., the tweet that contained it was timestamped at 12:11 p.m. — nearly an hour after most of the state`s residents received the warning in the first place. and long after the term “blue alert” was coined by curious Texans. who posted about the situation on Twitter, had become a viral sensation.
In order for the DPS to issue an alert, the requesting authority must determine that the suspects pose a serious threat to the public or other law enforcement officials, and detailed descriptions of their vehicles must be available. Alerts are designed to gather information from the public in order to catch criminals who kill or seriously injure local, state, or federal law enforcement officials. Former Gov. Rick Perry launched the state`s alert system in 2008 to “expedite the apprehension of violent criminals who kill or seriously injure local, state, or federal law enforcement officials,” according to the Texas Department of Security.