LEETONIA Amber Alert to be installed

Amber Alert is needed in small towns as well as cities, the chief said.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LEETONIA -- The police department will have an Amber Alert system in place within three months.
"Child abductions can take place anywhere, either by estranged family members or total strangers," Police Chief John Soldano said. "A small community like Leetonia isn't immune to having a child abducted."
A review of the National Crime Information Center shows that on average, 2,100 children are entered in the system every day as missing, he said.
Through computer hardware and software, Amber Alert system spreads the word of a missing child, giving a description and other information, he said.
The program is named after Amber Hagerman, who was abducted, then murdered in Texas in 1996. The Dallas Amber Alert began in 1997 to help safely recover children.
One of the features of the advanced computer system is that it can create posters of missing children for local, statewide or nationwide distribution, Soldano said.
Small community need
Soldano said a speaker at a seminar he attended at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Washington, D.C., is a poignant example of the need for Amber Alert in a small community.
The parents of Jacob Wetterling started the Jacob Wetterling Foundation in Minnesota after the boy disappeared while riding his bike. The boy's mother told of his disappearance from St. Joseph's, a small Minnesota town.
Jacob, his brother and a friend were riding bikes while Jacob's parents were not at home. They decided to go to the neighborhood video store. Jacob disappeared during the trip and never returned home, Soldano said.
Leetonia Patrolman Mike Sinkovich wrote the grant to fund the system and also saved the village money by donating his time to build a room to house the Amber Alert equipment.
Soldano said after the system is installed and operational, he plans to explore how it can be used to help other surrounding small police departments in the event a child is reported missing.
tullis@vindy.com