Amber Alert still too slow, sheriff says

Sheriff Rocky Watson’s frustrations with the statewide Amber Alert system are still ripe two months after the abduction of the Groene children put it to the test.

Sheriff’s officials requested an Amber Alert in the early morning of May 17, but it took nearly seven hours for information on the missing children to reach local broadcasters, according to Watson.

Despite assurances from state officials, Watson is worried that the statewide alert hasn’t changed enough since May to meet the needs of North Idaho or its potential victims.

“This does not work for children,” Watson said.

The May 17 alert was prompted when sheriff’s officials realized that two children were missing and believed abducted from the bloody triple homicide scene on East Frontage Road near Wolf Lodge Bay.

One of the children, Shasta Groene, 8, has since been found. Her brother, 9-year-old Dylan Groene, is dead. His remains were found at a remote campsite in Montana’s Lolo National Forest seven weeks after his disappearance.

His mother, 13-year-old brother and her mother’s boyfriend were all beaten to death with a hammer.

The alleged murderer and kidnapper, Joseph E. Duncan III, a 42-year-old sex offender from Fargo, N.D., is being held in the Kootenai County Jail without bail.

Authorities believe that Duncan took Dylan and Shasta first to Montana after the murders, which highlights one of the biggest problems that Watson sees with the Idaho Amber Alert system.

Not only is it slow, he said, but it lacks any coordination with Montana or Washington.

Kootenai County used to coordinate with other North Idaho counties and broadcasters in Montana and Eastern Washington to operate their own Amber Alert system through the Inland Northwest Local Emergency Communications Committee.

In those days, if law enforcement believed there had been an abduction, they could contact the Kootenai County 911 center and send the alert with the state-owned Emergency Alert System, which interrupts radio broadcasts for extreme weather or other emergency situations.

In a February meeting, the committee learned that Idaho had recently tested its statewide Amber Alert system, but there was a two-hour delay in getting the information to area broadcasters.

“Two hours is Missoula,” Watson said. “Two hours is past Ritzville.”

Despite the delays and weaknesses with the state system, the state Amber Alert director has insisted that Watson use the state system and will not allow use of the Emergency Alert System for regional alerts. That policy was reaffirmed in a meeting of the state Amber Alert Board on Monday in Boise, Watson said, despite earlier assurances by the state director of homeland security – which oversees statewide emergency operations – that Watson could still operate his local system.

Bill Bishop, homeland security director, said Tuesday that the problem was one of semantics: “Rocky can put any alert out on the EAS system he would like … but it would not get into the nationwide system that way.”

Watson and Shoshone County Sheriff Chuck Reynalds, however, both left Monday’s meeting with the distinct impression that use of the state equipment was not allowed for Amber Alerts – even local ones.

Reynalds said he did get assurances from Bishop’s second in command, however, that they would look into changing that rule.

“As of this moment, we do not have a decision,” Reynalds said.

The Amber Alert Board did decide, however, to allow law enforcement agencies to decide independently when an alert can be issued. All statewide alerts will continue to go through the Idaho State Police for verification, explained ISP spokesman Rick Ohnsman, but the ISP would not second-guess a local official’s decision to issue the alert.

“If the same situation took place tomorrow that happened in the Groene case, it would move with greater dispatch than it did,” Ohnsman said.

The state still does not have agreements with Montana or Washington, however, but the board agreed to seek those out so the alerts could be sent immediately to the neighboring states.

Until all the kinks are worked out of the statewide system, Watson would prefer to use his own.

“The clock’s ticking,” Watson said. “We could have another Amber Alert today.”