ROME, N.Y. (WKTV) - Rome Police announced Monday that they have received a tool that they believe will revamp their efforts to find missing children - an announcement coming coincidentally just days after a weekend child abduction scare at a local hospital.The first few moments after a child goes missing are a critical time for law enforcement as they try to locate a child. Now, an alert called "A Child is Missing" is available in Rome to help track down those that disappear.
A Child is Missing is an alert that uses state-of-the-art telephone and mapping technology to place 1,000 calls into a particular area where a child has gone missing.
Rome Police unveiled the service Monday at Rome Free Academy and had already began training officers Monday morning. According to MediaWire, who's providing the service and technology, 565 people have been successfully rescued since it began the program in 1997.
Rome Police say about 100 people went missing last year and using this service is a much more efficient way to reach a large number of people in a given area and notify them of a disappearance.
"Right now, if we get a child missing, we do the physical search ourselves, we have to go door to door asking people if they have seen a child, show the picture," said Deputy Chief Kevin Simons of the Rome Police Department. "With this system, we can make one phone call, and they activate their databases and 1,000 phone calls per minute will be made."
And the service isn't just for missing children - it can also be used for college students, those with developmental disabilities, or others who go missing in the area.
No taxpayer dollars are being used on the service in Rome, - it is free for as long as the department decides to use it.
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