TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Operation Find Me Joins Arsenal For Locating Kids

ADVERTISEMENT

By LISA A. DAVIS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 7, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY - The Pasco County Sheriff's Office has unveiled a new program aimed at quickly locating a missing or abducted child.

As part of Operation Find Me, the sheriff's office is giving away free thumb drives, a portable memory storage device that fits into a computer USB port, so parents and guardians can save information and photographs of their children in case of an emergency.

Parents and guardians can save digital photos and video of their children on the drive, which also features a template for a child's description. If a child becomes lost or abducted, the thumb drive can be given to a Pasco deputy or other law enforcement officer who then will download the child's information to a computer. That allows it to be transmitted instantly to the media, which can broadcast or print the photos and description for viewers and readers.

The first chance for parents and guardians to receive a free thumb drive will be at the Pasco Police Athletic League Football Jamboree, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Arthur F. Engle Memorial Park, 11611 Denton Ave., Hudson.

Members of the agency's Juvenile and Sex Offender Investigations Unit and school resource officers will take photos of children and enter their basic physical description, address and phone number onto the thumb drives.

Elementary school resource officers also will be trained in the operation and the distribution of thumb drives, and offer the service to children in Pasco schools.

Juvenile Investigations Unit members are also part of the agency's rapid-response Missing and Abducted Child Team. This group of deputies uses a state-of-the-art vehicle, funded by donations, to quickly get to the scene of abduction or where a missing child was last seen. The vehicle serves as a mobile office, and the team can use the thumb drive to forward photos and video of the child to the sheriff's office Web site, where the media and the public can view the information.

When a child is abducted and murdered, 75 percent are killed in the first three hours after they are taken. Law enforcement officers must work fast, said sheriff's office spokesman Kevin Doll. It is crucial for pictures and video of a missing child to be available and quickly distributed to other law enforcement agencies and the media so the public can be on the lookout for the child and the abductor, Doll said.

Reporter Lisa A. Davis can be reached at (727) 815-1083 or ldavis@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT