People in Wake County have experienced several AMBER Alerts recently. Two girls were kidnapped in the week of Feb. 23-29. Both of them were taken by men that they had been talking to online. Thankfully, both girls have been found and are safe.There were 211 AMBER alerts in North Carolina in 2023. AMBER stands for America’s Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response and was created for Amber Hagerman who was kidnapped and killed at age 9. Statistically, almost 7 out of 10 AMBER Alert children are found and given back to their families.
Sophomore Caraline Kruger said, “When I first got the alert, I was a little bit dismissive of it, as everyone usually is, but then I got the second one in the 24 hour period, I started to get a bit nervous, and then they just kept coming.”
Most people are used to getting an AMBER alert every other month. Some people have even canceled their alarms for the alert because it “doesn’t matter” to them. However, when you get more than one in a week, people start to get scared.
Kruger wants to keep the people around her safe, so hearing about a girl who met someone online and was kidnapped made her worried about the cyber security of her friends.
Kruger said, “I was a bit nervous during the AMBER alerts because I have a lot of friends who would match the description.”
To keep personal information safe, people should never share passwords or personal information. People should block scammers immediately so they don’t get hacked or have to pay money. They should also never talk to people online that they don’t know in real life.
Kruger said, “I talk to people online, but I never give personal information. Oftentimes I go with a fake name, and I never say where I’m from because that’s just basic cyber security rules.”
