COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio residents received an AMBER Alert early Wednesday morning after a 5-year-old Columbus boy was reportedly taken by his legal custodian, but not everyone was properly notified.
Just over an hour after police were called to a home in south Columbus, they contacted the Ohio State Highway Patrol to issue the alert. However, once the alert was pushed out, it was determined some in the Columbus area did not receive critical information, such as the child's name, description or a suspect vehicle.
This comes three weeks after OSHP enacted a change to the AMBER Alert system, allowing law enforcement to send longer messages with more information.
Initially, messages could only contain up to 90 characters. Now, alerts can contain up to 360 characters. The increase in characters allows public safety officials to provide more in-depth details on suspects, victims, vehicles and other important information.
OSHP issued a statement late Wednesday morning saying that shortly after sending the alert, they identified that not all cell phones in the Columbus area received all the information. They said corrective action was taken immediately, but their system's redundancies guaranteed that all critical information was shared with safety services, law enforcement and media partners.
An AMBER Alert can only be issued for cases that meet the following criteria:
- A confirmed abduction of a child under 18-years-old
- The child is believed to be at risk of bodily harm or death
- There is enough descriptive information about the child and abductor to be released to the public
- The child is not a runaway
In a high-profile case in December 2022, it took nearly two hours to issue an AMBER Alert once OSHP received information about the abduction of two baby boys.
Troopers aim to activate an AMBER Alert within an hour, and on Wednesday, it took 49 minutes.