Published: August 08, 2008 01:47 am            

Bringing children home

FBI sharing resources with WVHTC’s AmberView program

FAIRMONT — Efforts to recover missing children across the state were improved Thursday with the signing of a “memo of understanding” between two area organizations.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Criminal Justice Information Services is now sharing resources with the West Virginia High Technology Consortium (WVHTC) Foundation’s AmberView program to help return missing or abducted children in future emergencies and disasters.

A signing ceremony occurred Thursday morning between the two entities at the WVHTC to kick off the partnership.

“We’re very happy to be working with the FBI on this project,” said James Estep, president and CEO of the WVHTC. “It is extremely important, and we are hoping to improve and grow.”

Currently through the AmberView program, photographs are taken or submitted each year of children ages 3-17 across the state. In the event that a child goes missing, the program instantly transmits a digital version of his or her photograph and biographical data to law enforcement, news media and citizens.

And now through the new partnership with the FBI, program participants will also be fingerprinted, giving officials an additional tool to find missing children.

“It seems like a natural partnership, AmberView on the photo side, the FBI on the fingerprinting side. We have made many efforts together,” Thomas E. Bush, assistant director of the FBI Criminal Justice Services Division, said of the partnership.

“It’s a win-win situation for all of us and the citizens of West Virginia,” he added.

Bush explained that the FBI will provide kits that contain the fingerprint and DNA results of the kids in the program to go home with their parents. He said that while it is good to know the FBI has this information available, he hopes that they will never have to use it.

Both Estep and Bush said that they would like to continue expanding both of their organizations’ efforts in the future to ensure the best possible technology is available if they ever have a situation that calls for it.

E-mail Mallory Panuska at mpanuska@timeswv.com.

        

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