Dallas Police Department Blames DPS For Botched Amber Alert Sunday
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - The Dallas Police Department blames the Texas Department of Public Safety for a botched Amber Alert involving a missing 4-year-old boy.
The child was found safe after a false report from his father that he was inside a truck stolen from this parking lot.
But it took hours for Dallas Police and DPS to get out an Amber Alert that had absolutely no information about it included.
It was outside a McDonald's in Pleasant Grove where the father of 4-year-old Fermin Fuentes claimed his pickup truck was stolen around 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
Police found the truck abandoned about four hours later on Rylie Road a few miles away.
Minutes later, an Amber Alert was issued asking the public for any information about this abduction.
But the alert itself had zero information.
The boy was with his mother and police are now considering charges against the father for making up the story.
It comes a week after Fort Worth Police and DPS took five hours to get an Amber Alert issued for 8-year-old Salem Sabatka was also fortunately found safe.
A broken fax machine was blamed in that case.
But both were considered stranger abductions at the time.
The North Texas lawman who created the nationwide missing child alert system that can connect law enforcement agencies with the public in seconds claims there's no excuse for these two
episodes and believes improper training is behind both.
"Law enforcement agencies should continually train and update personnel who might be involved in child abductions on all aspects of the Amber Alert -- regional, state and national. The biggest emphasis should be on getting information out to the public in minutes, not hours. The plan was designed to quickly disseminate information and must be approached with a great sense of urgency when minutes, or even seconds, can mean life or death for an abducted child," said former Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson.
CBS 11 was not able to get a response from DPS about the Amber Alert.
Dallas Police say the father of the 4-year-old could face charges for filing a false report by claiming his son was inside the truck and that the boy's mother was in Mexico when she wasn't.
