Cell Phone Emergency type Alerts at Mass

[CatholicSpirit]

Sounds to me like an attempt at breaching Church sovereignty from government activities. That won’t lead to much good. Is nobody capable of informing workplaces that an hour is dedicated to Church? If local governments didn’t tamper with the truth so much I would be glad to see Amber alerting in case a child was at Church. How many accusations can one form from that with a 50%+ divorce rate. There are 168 hours in a week.

 

[DarkLight]

Generally Amber alerts aren’t sent out in cases of familial kidnapping unless there’s a specific reason to believe there will be harm to the child.

Honestly, even the church allows that missing Mass in cases of emergency personnel is allowed.

 

[CatholicSpirit]

They try to charge parents with kidnapping now. If it was the other way around that’s like making a citizens arrest on a cops testicle.

 

[DarkLight]

Well yes. The point of a kidnapping charge in that case is that you can’t just decide you’re going to cut the other parent out of the child’s life. Some parents will try to do that, take the kid and move away so the other parent doesn’t get to see the child again. There’s legal paths if a child genuinely should not be in contact with one parent.

 

[CatholicSpirit]

Prisoners get to see their kids. Prisoners.

 

[DarkLight]

Yes, they do, although not nearly as much as they should. It’s actually really hard to completely lose parental rights against your will if you’re making any effort at all. Most cases I’ve heard of involve a long period of uninvolvement - the parent knows of the child and has the ability to make contact, but makes no attempt for several years. Sometimes you get cases where the parent loses rights because they have been abusing the child.

The problem is, some parents will decide that they don’t want the other parent to spend time with the child, and will take off with the child rather than share custody. That’s usually when kidnapping charges come up, where there’s a shared custody arrangement and one parent attempts to take off with the child to prevent them from seeing the other.

 

[Isca]

Our local priests share a pager for emergencies at the local hospital and hospice. When it’s their turn to be on-call, they have it with them. The priest at the church I used to attend would place it on the steps of the altar at the start of Mass and tell people that it might go off if there was an emergency, in which case he would have to leave.

If someone is dying and in dire need of confession and absolution, that has to have priority. We don’t have enough priests to just have a full-time hospital and hospice chaplain.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

Prisoners get to see their kids. Prisoners.

Familial kidnapping is far more complicated than just a parent who did wrong. Typically, in these cases, there are reasons the parent lost custody. Extreme abuse, neglect, drug use or mental illness that makes them a danger to themselves or others.

Growing up, I knew a girl (older than me) whose father and mother split after he came back from war. He was dishonorably discharged. Even his CO was worried about his dangerous and irrational behavior. This was in the 70’s when it was unheard of for fathers to be pushed out of the picture. He was granted only supervised visitation. Yet, he managed to kidnap his daughter. She was missing for 3 years. She was a completely different person and needed years of therapy. As a young adult (well into her late teen years) she was terrified of being home alone and stuck to her mother like glue. She was in her 20’s before she learned to drive and just so incredibly broken and traumatized.

Not every parent makes the best decisions for their kids.

 

[exnihilo]

Personally I disable the emergency alerts. The Amber Alert system is a joke and abused. They aren’t supposed to send alerts for family members taking their own child, but that is most of what it is. The government emergency alerts are also a joke. They exist mostly to scare people and further condition them to see the government as their savior.

I used to turn my phone to vibrate and do not disturb. I also used to use my phone to access religious information, texts, and prayers. But one Sunday my bedtime alarm went off right during the consecration. I had gotten up early and gone to Mass and forgotten that alarms override any quiet setting. So now I turn my phone off in Mass. If I was a doctor, firefighter etc. or had an urgent need to be interrupted I’d leave it on (and make sure all alarms are off).

 

[boclucky14]

Personally I disable the emergency alerts. The Amber Alert system is a joke and abused. They aren’t supposed to send alerts for family members taking their own child, but that is most of what it is.

According to amberalert.gov (https://www.amberalert.gov/pdfs/2015AMBERAlertReport.pdf):

When a law enforcement agency is notified about an abducted child, it must first determine if that child’s
case meets the program’s AMBER Alert criteria. The U.S. Department of Justice’s recommended guidelines
are:

• There is reasonable belief by law enforcement an abduction has occurred.
• The abduction is of a child age 17 or younger.
• The law enforcement agency believes the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death.
• There is enough descriptive information about the victim and abduction for law enforcement to issue
  an AMBER Alert to assist in the recovery of the child.
• The child’s name and other critical data elements, including the Child Abduction flag, have been
  entered into the National Crime Information Center, known as NCIC, database.

From the statistical report:

14 cases were later determined to be hoaxes, and 13 cases were later determined to be
unfounded . . . Of the 182 AMBER Alerts issued from Jan. 1, 2015, to Dec. 31, 2015, 153 cases resulted in a recovery, 50
of which were successfully recovered as a direct result of an AMBER Alert being issued. As of Feb. 26,
2016, when statistics for this report were finalized, for the AMBER Alerts issued in 2015, two children
remained actively missing and eight children were located deceased.

When it comes to governmental efficiency, I don’t expect much. In fact, I expect next to nothing. AMBER alerts have successfully rescued children from imminent danger, and 50 of those [from 2015] are directly because of the AMBER alert system. I’d say its a system we shouldn’t take lightly.

 

[exnihilo]

According to the government they are doing a great job. Shocking. I don’t doubt the Amber Alert system is very successful. It is because most alerts issued are for family ‘abductions’. In those cases they know who took the kid, have a license plate number and know known locations to find the suspect. But the Amber Alert system was supposed to be for abduction by a stranger. It is used mostly to resolve family disputes where the child is not in any danger.

 

[DeniseNY]

I put my phone on silent, but I’m also set up for getting emergency weather alerts. I never thought to disable those while I’m Church. I guess I’ve been lucky that there hasn’t been an alert during Liturgy!

 

[DarkLight]

Keep in mind there are plenty of cases where children have been harmed by family members. I can’t find it now, but there was a case where the police refused to file a report because the children had been abducted by their father (who had lost custody). When the found them, the father had killed the children and then committed suicide.

 

[SMHW]

I didn’t remember it when I started this thread but I seem to recall that I may have been in the Church when an amber alert came through. I have some vague recollection of the priest and/or deacon looking at his phone, as did everyone else whose phone alarm went off.

 

[boclucky14]

I didn’t remember it when I started this thread but I seem to recall that I may have been in the Church when an amber alert came through. I have some vague recollection of the priest and/or deacon looking at his phone, as did everyone else whose phone alarm went off.

Yeah, that’s typically how those alerts happen. Newer phones allow you to better determine with alerts are allowed through. My device (Google Pixel) allows me to throw into “Do Not Disturb” mode, which means no sound will be produced (as opposed to just muting one of my four volume bars…) until I turn it off. I haven’t been able to test DND with an WEA to see which takes precedence.

Most of us don’t even think about it. I didn’t event realize there was a setting to disable it until now. If a WEA is sent out, most phones will start going off because it’s being sent out to everyone and it doesn’t follow the normal device volume, typically.

There’s no way to expect every person who walks into church to “fix” their phone for WEA alerts (as opposed to simply asking to put your phone on vibrate). Half the people wouldn’t even know what to do if they were told “Be sure to silence your WEA alerts for the next hour - and don’t forget to turn them back on if you want to”.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

According to the government they are doing a great job. Shocking. I don’t doubt the Amber Alert system is very successful. It is because most alerts issued are for family ‘abductions’. In those cases they know who took the kid, have a license plate number and know known locations to find the suspect. But the Amber Alert system was supposed to be for abduction by a stranger. It is used mostly to resolve family disputes where the child is not in any danger.

You are aware that most violent crimes towards children, including the “worst of the worst” physical and sexual assaults overwhelmingly happen at the hands of “family” members, right?

 

[exnihilo]

Keep in mind there are plenty of cases where children have been harmed by family members. I can’t find it now, but there was a case where the police refused to file a report because the children had been abducted by their father (who had lost custody). When the found them, the father had killed the children and then committed suicide.

You are aware that most violent crimes towards children, including the “worst of the worst” physical and sexual assaults overwhelmingly happen at the hands of “family” members, right?

Absolutely, but the Amber Alert system isn’t supposed to be used unless there is a reasonable belief the child faces serious harm. Since the police don’t honor this criteria when issuing an Amber Alert I ignore the alerts. From what I’ve observed they are mostly false alerts. When you cry wolf people stop paying attention.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

DarkLight:

Keep in mind there are plenty of cases where children have been harmed by family members. I can’t find it now, but there was a case where the police refused to file a report because the children had been abducted by their father (who had lost custody). When the found them, the father had killed the children and then committed suicide.

You are aware that most violent crimes towards children, including the “worst of the worst” physical and sexual assaults overwhelmingly happen at the hands of “family” members, right?

Absolutely, but the Amber Alert system isn’t supposed to be used unless there is a reasonable belief the child faces serious harm. Since the police don’t honor this criteria when issuing an Amber Alert I ignore the alerts. From what I’ve observed they are mostly false alerts. When you cry wolf people stop paying attention.

Yep. You know better than the piece when a child is in imminate danger at the hands of a mentaly disturbed relative.

I’d love to live in your world.

 

[babochka]

Honestly, with more people living in stupid places that people never should live (mountains with mudslides, deserts, unstable coastal built-up areas etc) i imagine that these sorts of adverse weather reports that have the matter of minutes to respond are going to be more frequent.

This reminds me of a song I once heard called, “One More Reason to Hate California”. The line that stuck in my head is “They build houses on stilts on hills that are fixin’ to fall.”

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

Xanthippe_Voorhees:

Honestly, with more people living in stupid places that people never should live (mountains with mudslides, deserts, unstable coastal built-up areas etc) i imagine that these sorts of adverse weather reports that have the matter of minutes to respond are going to be more frequent.

This reminds me of a song I once heard called, “One More Reason to Hate California”. The line that stuck in my head is “They build houses on stilts on hills that are fixin’ to fall.”

Like I said before. If Native Americans refused to build there, then follow that wisdom. Too many people are fixated on “luxary” homes with scenic views.