Amber Alert Gets Mixed Reviews

Hours after Southfield Police issued an Amber Alert for a 2-year-old girl they say was abducted with her mother on Monday, the two were found safe and unharmed.

Police there are offering few details about the investigation, but officials say it's typical of the clear-cut type of case that requires an Amber Alert, the voluntary system that immediately informs the media and community of missing children that may be in danger.

Yet the Amber Alert system itself is not without its critics, and several recent high-profile cases in Metro Detroit alone offer a closer look at how the system works and how some argue it could be made better -- with quicker and more consistent activation, especially when minors may be moved across state lines.

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Statewide alert system for missing elderly and disabled inching closer toward passage

A widespread alert system for missing elderly, disabled or other vulnerable persons quickly passed a House committee this morning.

State Patrol Capt. Jeff DeVere envisions a notification system similar to the Amber Alert for missing children. The alerts could be broadcast on television and radio stations, as well as on freeway overpass reader boards.

DeVere said the State Patrol would work with agencies to create a localized alert system that would broadcast information about missing persons in the area where they disappeared or where they may have gone. He said agencies don't want to put out too many alerts because the public might grow so accustomed to seeing them that the notices are ignored

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Amber Alert results in arrest of 2 Raywood women

A search for two Houston boys ended with the arrest of a Raywood woman and her mother Friday evening.
Kisha Victorian, 27, and Kate Smith, 46, were each charged with two counts of violation of a protective order after taking Victorian's two sons last week.
Victorian was also charged with two counts of interference of child custody.
The women took Torris Andre Lee II, 6, and Teandre Jamal Lee, 4, from their father, Torris Lee last Tuesday.
Cpl. Hugh Bishop with the Liberty County Sheriff's Office said they lured Lee, a Houston resident, to Smith's home in Raywood by saying they had set up a meeting with the boys' case worker.
Once Lee arrived, the women distracted him and took the boys. Lee waited until Friday to report the incident because he had received several assurances from Victorian that she was going to return the boys, said Bishop.
Protective orders had been issued against both women due to violence against the children.
"We thought that was enough to say they were in danger," said Bishop.
The Sheriff's Office issued an Amber Alert for the boys on Friday afternoon and soon located the boys in Beaumont.
Both children were in Sheriff's Office custody by 6 p.m. Friday, according to Bishop.
Victorian is being held at the Liberty County Jail pending trial. Bail was set at $3,500 for each count of violation of a protective order and $7,500 for each count of interference with child custody for a total of $22,000.
Smith was released on a $7,000 bond.