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Fifteen years ago today, 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted as she rode her bicycle in the parking lot of abandoned east Arlington grocery store. She was murdered.
Police say they are no closer to making an arrest than they were back in 1996, but Amber’s legacy survives in the AMBER Alert system operating in some form in 50 states and several foreign countries.
The missing notification system has been credited with saving 500 abducted or missing children since its inception and is widely praised by experts as an essential tool for quickly moving to rescue endangered children.
But some critics say the system isn’t nearly as prolific at saving the lives of children who are in real danger — primarily youngsters abducted by homicidal sexual predators who don’t know their victims — as its supporters claim.
“It’s not that the AMBER Alert is bad, it’s just not as good as people think,” said Dr. Jack Levin, professor of sociology and criminology at Northeastern University in Boston.”
Levin said there “might be a hundred cases a year where a child is actually abducted by a stranger, sexually abused and then killed. So you’re not going to see too many success stories. But even where there are apparent successes, and the AMBER Alert is used, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it was the AMBER Alert that caused the child to be returned home.”
That doesn’t matter to supporters who say even if one life is saved, the system works. Amber’s mother remains a staunch supporter of her daughter’s legacy.
“When Amber was here, she was like a little mommy,” Amber’s mother, Donna Norris, said during a recent interview. She always took care of the neighborhood children and watched over them. I know she’s very proud of the AMBER Alert and that mommy did the right thing by pushing this.”
One witness spoke up
Amber was snatched Jan. 13, 1996 as she and her younger brother rode their bicycles in the east Arlington grocery store parking lot. A witness — the only one to ever step forward — told police that he saw a man in a black truck grab Amber from her bike, throw her into his truck and drive away.
A man walking his dog discovered Amber’s body four days later in a North Arlington drainage ditch. Her throat had been cut, but police have not said whether she was
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