Three Amber Alerts in three weeks is rare, according to Ed Suk, executive director of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children Rochester.
You may have noticed the jarring noise of an Amber Alert coming from your phone more than usual lately. Suk says that is certainly more than average -- a typical calendar year sees six to eight alerts in New York state -- but he says it's an anomaly.
Suk says there are three criteria that a situation has to meet before an alert is issued: The child has to be under the age of 17, there has to be reason to believe an abduction has taken place and there has to be reason to believe that the child is at the risk for serious physical harm.
So he wants people to know that the alerts that make it to your phone are still the most serious cases.
"Those criteria have been set so that there aren’t thousands of Amber Alerts going out. So when you see one happening, it's really critical that the general public pay attention. When your phone goes off, take a look at it, you may have something happening right in front of you."
"We don’t want to be in a position where we're pushing information out and irritating people because then we kind of go the way of the car alarm, where people don’t pay attention to these situations, and I think the Amber Alerts are pushed out very judiciously and very cautiously."
He says they still need everyone to pay attention to the alerts and keep an eye out for children and perpetrators described, whether it be at a stoplight, on the Thruway or a convenience store.
Suk says after a recent alert went out for a 14-year-old from the Byron/Bergen area, she was found in a Walmart in Pennsylvania.
Although the increase in local alerts is unsettling, Suk says all three recent incidents have been resolved successfully.
In the latest incident, local Amber Alert incident, Rochester police have canceled the alert which was issued after they said 14-year old Joanna Coates was with a 41-year old man, identified as Robert Gonzalez.
The teen was located without incident in Brooklyn. Arrangements were being made to bring Coates and Gonzalez back to Rochester. Gonzalez may be facing a kidnapping charge.