Wauwatosa officers create abduction response team

State's first team will expedite investigations of missing children
By JANICE KAYSERjkayser@cninow.com
Posted: March 19, 2008
http://www.wauwatosanow.com/story/index.aspx?id=729996

Detective Fred Carsky said that in his nearly 30 years with the Police Department, he recalls a handful of attempted child abductions in Wauwatosa.

Thankfully, observant witnesses intervened and thwarted what could have turned into the unspeakable, he said.

But just because such attempts are few and far between does not make Wauwatosa immune to such horrors.

Should it happen here, the Wauwatosa Police Department will have officers who have completed specialized training to help locate and return missing children.

Carsky and four other Wauwatosa detectives will be part of the state's first Child Abduction Response Team, it was announced this week.

"We hope we never have to use this training," said Carsky, who initiated the department's involvement. "But the reality is it can happen at any time. … The best thing we can do is be prepared to act swiftly and confidently using all available resources to bring the child home."
The team includes Carsky, Dan Collins, Dennis Davidson, David Hoppe and Lisa Hudson. They will be joined by investigators, victim witness specialists, Milwaukee County assistant district attorneys and a representative from People and Paws, a canine search-and-rescue team.

Funded through a U.S. Department of Justice program, training for the 12-member team will be administered by Fox Valley Technical College. After a week of training in April, the team will be deployed as needed throughout the Milwaukee County suburbs when a child is reported missing.
Differs from other crimes

A child abduction is very different than any other crime, and time is of the essence, Carsky said.
"We know how to handle robberies, assaults, burglaries," he said. "But a child abduction is a different animal."

Statistics from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children show that the majority of abducted children who are murdered are usually killed within the first three hours of the abduction.

The training will include how to best use federal and state resources, search-and-rescue teams and investigative strategies to act quickly within the first few hours of a missing child report.
Unlike the Amber Alert, which alerts law enforcement agencies, media and the public to a potential child abduction, there are no specific criteria to call a CART group.

To call an Amber Alert, a law enforcement agency must identify the situation as an abduction, the child must be believed to be in danger of great bodily harm and a description of the abductor or vehicle must be available. A CART group can be called anytime a child is reported missing.
At any given time, there are one to five Wauwatosa children listed as missing, according to police.
Most of those children are runaways or teens who failed to let parents know they went to a friend's home.

Expedites warrants, paperwork

David Budde, chief investigator with the district attorney's office, said the joint effort will be of great benefit.

Involving the district attorney's victim-witness specialists and prosecutors from the start will help expedite search warrants and complaints, a process that can take precious time to complete under regular circumstances, he said.

Debra Davidoski, director of victim witness services for the district attorney's office, said having a victim-witness advocate on the abduction response team frees up detectives to continue working on the case.

"When you have a child that has been abducted, you have a very limited time frame in which to work," she said. "This training will give us a better chance to recover that child more quickly and, hopefully, before they are harmed."

Janice Kayser can be reached at (262) 446-6608.

FYI

How did CART start?
The development of Child Abduction Response Teams started in Florida as a result of the 2004 abduction of an 11-year-old Sarasota girl.
Carlie Brucia's abduction was caught on videotape as she took a shortcut behind a car wash on her way home from a sleepover.
The video showed Carlie being led away by her abductor who assaulted and murdered her and left her body in a church parking lot.
The abductor's girlfriend tipped off police.
Joseph Smith, 37, a mechanic and father of three, was ultimately convicted of Brucia's murder and sentenced to death.
Since then, the CART training program has taken off, mostly in the south, and more teams have formed each year.

FYI

According to the U.S. Department of Justice:
• 797,500 children (younger than 18) were reported missing in a one-year period of time resulting in an average of 2,185 children being reported missing each day.
• 203,900 children were the victims of family abductions.
• 58,200 children were the victims of non-family abductions.
• 115 children were the victims of "stereotypical" kidnapping. These crimes involve someone the child does not know or a slight acquaintance who holds the child overnight, transports the child 50 miles or more, kills the child, demands ransom or intends to keep the child permanently.