Nevada gets ready to join Amber Alert network

The Amber Alert system is all about speed, so it's good to see the Nevada Legislature has moved with dispatch to approve AB322 and send it to the governor for his signature.

The alert system is named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old Texas girl kidnapped and murdered in 1996.

It creates a voluntary partnership between law enforcement and media to quickly notify the public of a child abduction. It worked to perfection last August when a CalTrans worker heard an alert, wrote the license plate number in the dirt where he was working and notified authorities when he spotted the vehicle. Two California teenagers were rescued.

Nevada has been informally participating in the nationwide network, but has been slow to take the necessary steps to set up a committee to oversee the alert system within the state.

Congress has approved a national Amber Alert system, and 41 states now have their own.

Unfortunately, along with Nevada, other Western states that haven't yet formally adopted an Amber Alert yet are Idaho, Wyoming, Alaska and Hawaii. Only four states in the East are lacking.

As pointed out by the Polly Klaas Foundation, the group pushing for adoption of the network in all 50 states, "A nationwide plan is only as good as the states it relies on to connect the country."

The faster Nevada can join the cause, the better the coordination with other states. As police say, in abduction cases time is their biggest adversary.

The Amber Alert is one of those alarms we hope would never have to be sounded in Nevada. We know, however, it is only a matter of when, not if. But we're equally sure the network will someday save a child's life in Nevada.