Q&A: Where did the term 'Amber Alert' originate?

Tragedy turned into lifesaver

Where did the term "Amber Alert" originate?

Amber Hagerman, 9, was riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas, in January 1996 when she was kidnapped. A witness saw it and called 911, but she was gone by the time police arrived. Her body was found four days later. Her mother, Donna Whitson, began a campaign for tougher penalties against child molesters. And one Dallas man wondered why we could have alerts about severe weather, but not for a missing child when every minute mattered. Especially in a country where 100 children are abducted every year by strangers, and 75 percent of them are murdered in the first three hours. That question morphed into the formation of the "Amber Alert," a child abduction alert in the United States and Canada that is distributed by radio, TV, e-mail, electronic road signs and text messages with whatever is known about the crime — usually information about the victim, a description or name of the suspect and any information about the vehicle used. Every state and many cities have Amber Alerts or alerts named after other missing children.

The Justice Department's guidelines suggest these alerts be issued only when law enforcement is certain an abduction has occurred, that the child is at risk to be hurt or murdered, that there is sufficient description, that the child is younger than 17 and that the child's name and other information have been entered into the National Crime Information Center computer.

Amber's killer remains at large. Her grandmother, Glenda Whitson, told truTV two years ago that the system was "the right legacy" for her granddaughter. "It feels good when some child is brought home and our baby helped," says Mrs. Whitson. "You just look up to heaven and say, 'You did it again, baby.' . . . Of course I know sometimes it doesn't turn out good, but the Amber Alert gives them something more to go on from the very start."

Musician is a free man

Can you tell me the legal status of Cat Stevens since he was arrested for some type of terrorist charge?

Yusuf Islam, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens, was never arrested. He was denied entry into the United States in 2004 because his name showed up on a terrorist watch list. In 2005, Islam won a lawsuit against two British newspapers that suggested he had links to terrorists.

As Cat Stevens, he sold more than 60-million albums with hits including Peace Train and Moonshadow. In the late 1970s, he became a Muslim and changed his name. In 2006, An Other Cup was his first pop album since his conversion. Islam spends most of his time in his native London and also in Dubai. He has visited the United States several times since the 2004 incident.