Amber Alerts must be protected from overuse and the RCMP's decision not to issue the high-profile public plea after a 12-year-old autistic boy went missing was the right one, says a proponent of the program.John Fulton, whose beaming smile graces several photos released by his family, was found slain on Monday evening in a neighbour's home after he vanished from the steps of his Grand Forks, B.C., townhouse complex two days earlier.
His family became the latest anguished Canadian family to say police should have used an Amber Alert to publicize their child's disappearance.
Fulton's autism meant he couldn't roam far from the "comfort zone" of the subdivision where he lived, his family said.
"We do not know if this could have saved Johnny's life, nor do we wish to speculate," said the statement.
"However, we feel strongly that any child with autism should automatically qualify as an Amber Alert."
But Linda Patterson, who was involved in getting the program introduced in New Brunswick in 2003, said the RCMP had nothing to go on.
"As far as I'm concerned they've done the right thing because if they started issuing Amber Alerts freely, without a lot of information, people would stop paying attention to them," she said from her home in Oromocto, N.B.
"My heart goes out to the family, it really does," said Patterson, who is president of the Block Parent Program of Canada and her provincial chapter and is also chairwoman of the Crime Prevention Association in New Brunswick.
Police have defended their decision not to use the Amber Alert system in Fulton's case, saying it didn't meet the requirements.
RCMP Cpl. Annie Linteau said the case didn't meet the requirements for an Amber Alert, which is triggered when police believe a child under 18 has been abducted and is in danger.
The criteria also stipulates there be information on a suspect or vehicle so the information can be broadcast by the media or be posted on electronic highway-condition signs.
"I can say that this particular case did not meet the Amber Alert criteria because we did not have any information about the suspect vehicle or about an abductor," she said.
"You want people to really pay attention when there is an Amber Alert. You don't want to run into a situation where there is an Amber Alert every day because people just wouldn't pay attention to it."
Last year alone, police received reports of 12,000 missing children in B.C., she said, adding stranger abductions are extremely rare.
She said police sought the public's help in locating Fulton by issuing a news release.
Cpl. Dan Moskaluk said police conducted an air and dog search after the boy vanished at about 8 p.m. on Saturday and continued it on Sunday before search and rescue efforts began.
"Normally we do not do a lot of night searches but in this case on Saturday night it went on till 5 a.m. with our resources and then again the next day and then well into the next night with search and rescue," Moskaluk said.
He said police had posters of the missing boy up around the community by 8 a.m. on Sunday, 12 hours after Fulton's disappearance.
Police in Woodstock, Ont. faced the same scrutiny for not issuing an Amber Alert after the disappearance of eight-year-old Tori Stafford earlier this year.
The Ontario Provincial Police are currently co-ordinating a review of the province's Amber Alert program.
A petition dubbed "Tori's Law" called for changes to the alert criteria and gained momentum online, ballooning to over 28,000 signatures by the end of May.
Acting Insp. David Rektor said the review could be completed by the fall.
Police were also criticized for not issuing an Amber Alert when 12-year-old Karissa Boudreau of Bridgewater, N.S., disappeared from her mother's car.
Dianna Cann, executive director of Child Find Nova Scotia, said at the time that police did not have any information about an abductor being involved in the death of the girl, whose mother pleaded guilty to strangling her in January 2008.
Fulton's family also said in their statement that they urge police to work with the Autism Society of Canada "to educate themselves about the realities of autism."
Michael Lewis, president of the society's national and B.C. chapters, said the group has been in touch with the RCMP in the last year on how best to deliver information about autism and other disabilities to officers.
But Lewis said he's not sure if that would have helped the Mounties in this case.
"I guess we could have reiterated to them the family's articulation that it would be highly unusual for this boy to have wandered off," he said.
But he said that unlike Fulton, some autistic children, like his own son, do wander off, depending on the degree of their condition.
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