The Siloam Springs Police Department and the Benton County Child Abduction Response Team conducted a missing child and abduction training day on Jan. 20. The six-hour hands-on training session began with a mock abduction of a 3-year-old boy in the Stonecrest subdivision, east of the Siloam Springs airport.
Siloam Springs Police Capt. Geoff Lewis and Benton County CART coordinator Jeff Robbins facilitated the training.
A mobile CART training command center was set up at Siloam Springs Municipal Airport, where more than 40 officers, detectives and CART agents were tasked with conducting search and rescue efforts.
Once police were notified of the "missing" child, police dispatched as if a real child was abducted and began conducting a door-to-door search for him. No responding officers were given any information regarding the scenario other than the geographical area, Lewis said.
"They had to develop their own leads, which was done by the officers and supervisors involved in the training scenarios," he said.
Within the first hour of notification of the abducted child, patrol officers were posted at both entrances to the neighborhood to observe people who came in and left. Other officers had searched a wooded area behind the subdivision, where they found evidence. Lewis planted 20 pieces of evidence, nine of which were located in the wooded area.
Detectives were called in to survey and collect the evidence.
"Our detectives had to distinguish evidence from site debris," Lewis said. "They found all of the (planted evidence), plus native or natural artifacts and items that had been out there that they could not distinguish if it was evidence or was pre-existing to the crime," he said.
After three hours into the training session, the CART team found a second evidence site, where 11 pieces of evidence were collected.
"Training scenarios like this gives us opportunities to work with other agencies, and gives the officers involved opportunities to better evaluate the situation so we can initiate and deploy resources," Lewis said.
Prior to the training exercise the Benton County CART team had never had an exercise in the area, Lewis said.
"Training for our Police Department, the community and CART gives us the opportunity to evaluate our processes to keep us prepared and keep our skill sets fresh if the need arises," Lewis said. "For the CART team, it gives them a chance to evaluate their processes and evaluate the areas we need to improve on. We prepare with this so we can have a successful resolution if a child is abducted."
General News on 01/28/2015