What is a Silver Alert? Here's what it means and why it can save lives
When your phone buzzes with a Silver Alert, or you drive past a freeway sign indicating a Silver Alert, you might be wondering why exactly it was issued or what it means. With there being Amber and Blue Alert Systems as well, it can be confusing to track the meaning of each alert.
Knowing the meaning behind all of these alerts is very useful when it comes to ensuring the safety of the public and knowing the reason behind each one can be instrumental in saving someone's life. Here's what to know about Silver Alerts:
What is a Silver Alert?
A Silver Alert is issued by the Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) when someone over the age of 65 or someone with a cognitive or developmental condition such as dementia or Alzheimer's disease goes missing.
They are issued after the police have exhausted all available resources to find someone fitting that criteria whose health and wellness may be in danger because of their age or condition. A person reported via a Silver Alert is usually missing because of unknown or suspicious circumstances.
The goal of a Silver Alert is to use communication and information dissemination with the public to help ensure the safety and well-being of whoever went missing.
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What happens when a Silver Alert is issued in Arizona?
When the Department of Public Safety issues a Silver Alert, local law enforcement agencies are notified, and the alert is broadcast to the public. It can be broadcast through radio, TV, cell phones and other data-enabled devices.
The Arizona Department of Transportation also helps with the dissemination of the alert, displaying details of it on their freeway message board if the missing person is believed to be in a vehicle. There are 108 message boards across metro Phoenix and a total of 193 across the state, according to DPS.
The location of an alert will determine what signs it is displayed on, as the law requires that officials only spread alerts to regions where the disappearance took place.
What other states use Silver Alerts?
26 other states use the Silver Alert system, according to Senior Link, and Arizona has been using it since 2014. Several other states have similar alert systems in place.
How are Amber and Blue alerts different from Silver?
While Silver Alerts are used to help locate a missing and or endangered elderly or developmentally disabled person, Amber Alerts are used to locate a child who has been abducted.
They are issued when someone under the age of 18 is determined to be abducted and not a runaway. They are issued when the abduction poses a credible threat of imminent danger to the child, and there are enough details about the child, abductor and the circumstances of the abduction that someone may provide a location based on the alert's description.
The goal of an Amber Alert is to communicate with the public to help locate and retrieve the child before they are hurt, as well as to apprehend the abductor.
A Blue Alert is used to communicate to the public that a law enforcement officer has been a victim of a violent attack. These are issued when an officer has been killed or severely injured, and the suspect is determined to pose an immediate threat to the public.
The alert would provide information about the suspect so the public knows to steer clear of them, and their location can be shared with law enforcement to help accelerate the suspect's apprehension and lower the chances of anyone else being in danger.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Silver Alerts: Different from Amber, Blue Alerts but still important
