The AMBER Plan was created in 1996 in remembrance of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, a bright little girl who was kidnapped and brutally murdered while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas. The tragedy sent shock waves across the community. People contacted radio stations in the Dallas area and suggested they broadcast special “alerts” over the airwaves so that they could help prevent such incidents in the future.

In response to the community’s concern for the safety of local children, the Dallas/Fort Worth Association of Radio Managers teamed up with local law-enforcement agencies in northern Texas and developed this innovative early warning system to help find abducted children. The AMBER Plan is a voluntary partnership between law-enforcement agencies and broadcasters to activate an urgent bulletin in the most serious child-abduction cases. 

Broadcasters use the Emergency Alert System (EAS), formerly called the Emergency Broadcast System, to air the description of the abducted child and the possible suspect. The goal of the AMBER Alert is to immediately rouse the entire community to assist in the search for the safe return of the child.  Once the abduction has been brought to the notice of the law enforcement agencies, they will determine whether the case meets the AMBER Plan’s criteria for triggering an alert.

If the criteria are met, alert information must be put together for public distribution. This information can include descriptions and pictures of the missing child, the suspect, and any other information available and valuable in identifying the child and suspect.

The information is then faxed to radio stations selected as primary stations under the Emergency Alert System (EAS).  The primary stations send the same information to area radio and television stations, cable systems via the EAS, and participating stations to millions of listeners immediately broadcast it.   The radio stations interrupt programming to announce the Alert, television stations and cable systems run a “crawl” on the screen along with a picture of the missing child thus making it easy to identify the child by millions of viewers.