Residents 'Really Glad' For Child Abduction Exercise
WESTMINSTER, Colo. (CBS4) - When a child is missing in a possible abduction, the first few hours in the investigation are critical.
That's why, officers from across the state, along with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, participated in intensive training Thursday.
While it's just a mock child abduction, the scenario looks and feels real.
"I'm really glad to see them do this. I've never been in a community where they've done this kind of training. I didn't realize they did it to this extent," said neighborhood resident Marie Strickman.
In addition to road blocks and car searches, officials went door-to-door talking to some of the 100 role playing volunteers, some of whom could be witnesses, while others acted uncooperative.
The reason is to make the training as real as possible.
"In cases where a child is taken and murdered, 76 percent of those children are killed within the first three hours," said FBI Supervisory Special Agent Joshua Wilson. It's a crime where you have no body, no witness, no evidence, no crime scene. So we have to flood the area with law enforcement as quickly as possible to identify those witnesses that don't know that they saw something."
All agencies involved will get together when the exercise is done and evaluate how things were handled.