Homicide stats in Canadian Cities

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

Damn, I got the amber alerts on my phone late last night and then a message an hour later that the child had been located. I thought it was good news.

That’s what I thought too. It was absolutely misleading.

[Acajack]

Apparently some people were upset about the late time of the Amber Alert and called the police to complain about it. Some others also voiced their complaints on social media.

It's because of the Amber Alert that police succeeded in apprehending the suspect. Tragically the girl was not with him and no longer alive.

Not to be outdone, someone in my area also complained about the late night Amber Alert, on the "Spotted à Gatineau" Facebook page. Ironically that person was saying that when the alert sounded, they had just put their own young child to bed and were finally getting some sleep. And then, woe is me, the Amber Alert woke them up.

I just checked and as of now there are 412 messages in response to this post, all of them condemning the selfishness and heartlessness of this person's opinion.

(It's a good thing for the OP that posts like his or hers on Spotted à Gatineau are anonymous. Follow-up comments are not.)

[suburbanite]

I'm sure if it was her kid she would understand if everyone else didnt want to be bothered by a text notification.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I just checked and as of now there are 412 messages in response to this post, all of them condemning the selfishness and heartlessness of this person's opinion.

I have to wonder how many of those comments there would be if this hadn't ended so tragically though. The last time we had an amber alert for a child who was missing in Thunder Bay (who was found alive and well shortly after), there was a lot of griping and little criticism of those who were doing so.

But what I'm wondering about the emergency/amber phone alerts is: does it still make a sound if your phone is on silent? If not, I don't really have any sympathy for people who were awoken. If it does though, I can certainly see why they'd be a problem (and not particularly helpful - I mean, it's not as if anyone is going to get out of bed to go help find the missing child).

[niwell]

I have an iphone which I keep on silent 95% of the time - I woke up to see the notification but wasn't woken up because it was on silent. I have no idea if some phones play the noise regardless. But I also know way too many people don't keep their phones on silent based on the annoying ringtones I hear in the office and even occasionally in meetings.

[Acajack]

Well, the anonymous person on Spotted Gatineau said that they had turned all alerts off and that the Amber still over-rode them all and rang just before midnight anyway.

For some reason I only got the alert on my phone at 8:22 this morning. My ringer was on low volume but it rang louder than the setting.

[Dengler Avenue]

When I first heard the alarm, I thought there was gonna be an airstrike.

[TorontoDrew]

Sad outcome but glad to know our phones can be put to better use then just posting the food we eat and smashing angry birds.

[Dengler Avenue]

Alright Peel Regional Police is pissed that people complain about the Amber Alert.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Alright Peel Regional Police is pissed that people complain about the Amber Alert.

With good reason I'd say.

[Dengler Avenue]

Hmm...
If 11:45 pm was the only time they could send it, then sure;
If it could have been done before 11 pm, I feel those that complained.

[Acajack]

My view is that it's an emergency situation where a child's life is at risk and every second counts. So they send it when they send it and that's it.

[CanSpice]

Not only did people complain about receiving the Amber Alert, a number of them called 911 to complain about it. That's doubly boneheaded.

[JuelzJones]

Toronto is at 9, 6 of those are by gun

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Acajack

My view is that it's an emergency situation where a child's life is at risk and every second counts. So they send it when they send it and that's it.

For the record, I took the effort to memorize the license plate so I could call the police if I saw it.

[CityTech]

This was my worry when they started doing the mandatory alerts.. they'd waste them on amber alerts for missing kids hundreds (in some cases, thousands--remember Thunder Bay?) of kilometres away.

They should be reserved for real disasters, so people take them seriously and have way less reason to find hacks to disable them. Amber alerts should only trigger the system for people nearby, say within 50km.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by CityTech

This was my worry when they started doing the mandatory alerts.. they'd waste them on amber alerts for missing kids hundreds (in some cases, thousands--remember Thunder Bay?) of kilometres away.

They should be reserved for real disasters, so people take them seriously and have way less reason to find hacks to disable them. Amber alerts should only trigger the system for people nearby, say within 50km.

An argument can be made that they could be more precisely targeted, based on how far the abductor could have gotten. But 50 km is far too little, only a 30 minute drive.

That father could fairly easily have been in Montréal by midnight last night.

[SKvKREW]

Originally Posted by CityTech

This was my worry when they started doing the mandatory alerts.. they'd waste them on amber alerts for missing kids hundreds (in some cases, thousands--remember Thunder Bay?) of kilometres away.

They should be reserved for real disasters, so people take them seriously and have way less reason to find hacks to disable them. Amber alerts should only trigger the system for people nearby, say within 50km.

An 11 year old child is dead you ASSHOLE! Just happens to be a relative....I hope you fuckin rot!

[vid]

To be fair, we here in Thunder Bay received this alert too. We receive all the amber alerts Southern Ontario sends out, even though so far, only one has ever actually been in this region.

If your phone is set to not send notifications, but the volume is on, the alert system will override that and play the sound. If the phone is on silent, it won't make a sound, but will still display a notification on screen. If your phone is off, it won't receive the signal at all and will not display any notification, as the signal is only sent out for a brief period of time and then turned off. (Texts are actually collected by a central service, and your phone's SMS app calls that service every 15 to 120 seconds and asks if it there are any texts there, and to send them if there are, which is how you receive texts even if your phone is off, but don't receive phone calls the same way.)

My coworker was at a cinema last night when it went off, and most people's phones made sounds, probably because people use a hush notifications feature instead of silencing the phone, and again, this isn't an app notification, it's an alert system.

The father was supposed to return the girl by 6:30, we didn't get a notification until 11 or so, which was when they made the determination that an amber alert was warranted. No one knew where he had gone. If you assume he left the GTA at 6:30, by the time that alert was issued he could have been as far as Elliot Lake, which is half-way between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie. Had he left Toronto at 4:30, he could have been in Sault Ste. Marie, with his next destination being Thunder Bay. So yes, it was warranted to reach out to the entire province.

Also, things would likely have been a hell of a lot worse if everyone got a message at 12:30am saying "hey, an 11 year old girl was just killed on her birthday".

[Acajack]

Also it is said that the Peel police switchboard was flooded with complaints - right where the girl went missing.

Not exactly remote to where this was happening. Except in their minds I guess.