Surprisingly Timely, A Child-Abduction Exercise Is Held in Gloucester County, NJ
By Jim Melwert
MULLICA HILL, N.J. (CBS) -- A field training exercise today in South Jersey is recreating a child-abduction incident, aiming to teach local police what to do (and what not to do) when a child goes missing.
In the training scenario set up in conjunction with the New Jersey State Police and the FBI, a ten-year-old girl is missing, last seen talking to a man in a nearby park.
"It's kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure type of situation," says Harrison Township police department lieutenant Ron Cundey, who notes there are about 125 officers and other law enforcement personnel from Gloucester and Camden counties taking part.
And that doesn't count the FBI agents who are running the scenario or members of the community who are helping by playing roles.
"It was quite an undertaking with some of the businesses," Cundey says, "to get them involved for their video cameras, and getting to use different residences, vehicles, and apartments where actual scenes would be taking place."
Cundey says the timing of this is interesting as they watched the FBI work with police yesterday to find a 22-year-old woman who was abducted off the streets of Philadelphia and found safe in Maryland.