Amber Alert & the Wonders of Modern Technology

Thursday afternoon, cell phones all over town were chiming with an Amber alert.  An Audi was stolen out of a driveway in our town with a 5 year old boy in the back seat.  The Amber alert was shared on multiple Facebook pages - including my own.  I went to pick my kids up at school and shortly after that the good news started being shared just as quickly.  The car and the boy had been found unharmed 2 towns over.  The perpetrator still at large.  

My theory (and many agree with me) is that the perp had been looking to steal a nice car, and had no idea there was a kid in the backseat.  Once he realized the boy was there, he couldn't go back to the house without getting caught right there, so he went a little further and abandoned the car hoping to get away.

He was apprehended Saturday morning and is now in police custody.  This was probably an isolated incident but I will be changing my habits a little bit.  I can't count the number of times I have left my kids sleeping in the car while I unloaded groceries or whatever the Mom was doing.  I routinely left my son in the car when I would pick up my daughters at school if the weather is bad (figuring I was only gone 5 minutes).  My kids all know what happened.  I have told my daughters that if they don't see me at their door at pickup they are to walk down to where cars park and look for me so I won't have to take Little Man out of the car in the rain or miserable cold and we are all safe. 

I can't imagine what that Mom was going through in the two hours or so that her son was missing.  I'm sure it felt like an eternity.  I don't know what happened in the car.  I hope the kid was asleep the whole time, but I doubt it.  I hope he knows the whole community was wishing for his safe return and rejoiced when he was reunited with his family.  

Many of us criticize ourselves or others who spend time sharing trivial things on Facebook or watching meaningless daytime TV, but on Thursday that's where the Amber alerts were shared and that along with our diligent police forces helped get a little boy back home quickly.