Why was no Amber Alert issued in Surrey baby abduction?

A baby is safe after they were abducted Tuesday morning when someone stole a car in Cloverdale. The one-year-old was found within an hour.

In a news release about the incident, Surrey RCMP said an Amber Alert had been issued. But that wasn’t exactly the case.

An Amber Alert is a program that uses radio and TV announcements, text messages, and highway and transit message boards to alert the public that a child has been abducted.

CityNews Vancouver did not receive any notification of an Amber Alert, which has strict conditions that must be met in order for it to be activated.

Baby found safe after being abducted in stolen vehicle: https://t.co/E1MC3pcMAO pic.twitter.com/OMzjwXVpwn

— Surrey RCMP (@SurreyRCMP) November 9, 2021

Sgt. Elenore Sturko with Surrey RCMP says when they got the call about the missing baby, all members in the city were alerted and they began investigating whether the situation met the criteria for an Amber Alert.

“We begin a process of determining the facts of the case. What happened? Is the suspect known? Is it perhaps the case of a member of the family taking the vehicle? Confirming if we have a license plate, accurate description of the vehicle [including the] make and model,” she said.

“In this case … yes, it did meet that threshold.”

According to Sturko, the usual process is the Amber Alert information is put out on social media, and the media is notified simultaneously.

“What ended up happening is that we received, and we filled out all the information and … pressed ‘Go’ on the social media … And at that exact moment, actually, they received notification that the baby was found, thankfully. And so, sort of 50 per cent [of notifications] went out, and then the call was made to not send the rest.”

RELATED: Baby taken during theft of vehicle in Surrey found safe

Sturko says the details went out to the BC RCMP Twitter page and on the website, and then it was immediately rescinded.

She says members have been discussing best practices going forward.

“Although it’s concerning, the public wonders now why they didn’t receive that alert on their phone. And then it did show up on our website, in our social media. It literally was two different fingers over two buttons meant to be pressed simultaneously.”

“There wasn’t a lot of … bureaucratic obstacles or anything like that, it’s just a matter of being able to confirm information, ensure that the right channels within our organization and operationally are notified and then get that ball going.”

Sturko says she was in the process of requesting assistance from a news helicopter when they were notified that the baby had been found.

“People didn’t get an alert on the phone today, because it wasn’t needed.”

Sturko says although the process of sending the alert was only half completed, there was nothing “halfway” about the effort mobilized to search for the missing infant.

“Just because the Amber Alert isn’t there, we want to assure the public that it does not in any way mean that our investigation is delayed at all,” she says.

“I can tell you that every available unit, whether it was frontline, traffic, even some youth units, everyone who was available, it was all hands on deck. We were all starting to do grid searches and looking for that vehicle. The Amber Alert is actually a very important part of our programme, it’s an very important part of the process that helps engage the public when we need them to assist us, but it’s just part of a bigger machine.”

Process, incident will be reviewed

Still, given that the Surrey RCMP have never issued an Amber Alert before, the force will be reviewing this to see if the process can be improved or sped up.

“If there is something that delayed us, that could have made a difference to help us find this baby faster — of course we want to pull out those stops, we want to remove those barriers to make sure that we’re doing everything as quickly as possible,” she says.

“If there’s a way to make it faster, to make sure that the risk is reduced particularly for people who may have been abducted, we’re going to do that.”

Sturko says every case is different, and it’s critical to verify information before sharing it, making it impossible to say how quickly an alert could be issued in future cases.

“There is no guarantee that those things can be done within a certain timeline. But I have no hesitation in saying that there would be no benefit to anyone in this community — neither the police, nor community members, or victims of crime, for us to put up any unnecessary delays. Our goal, always is to find the child. Our goal is to find the child by whatever means necessary. So, the Amber Alert in itself isn’t necessarily a goal. It’s whatever kind of investigative techniques we need to use to make sure that we have a proper resolution.”